RBC Taylor Prize long list of 12 titles includes former winner Ian Brown

TORONTO – Twelve titles have made the long list for the 2016 RBC Taylor Prize for non-fiction, including one by a former winner and another that’s already won a major award.

Toronto journalist Ian Brown, who won the $25,000 Taylor prize in 2010 for his memoir “The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son,” made the cut this time for “Sixty: The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning?” (Random House Canada).

Also on the list is “Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva” (HarperCollins Publishers) by Toronto’s Rosemary Sullivan, which won the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction in October.

Other titles on the long list include “Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey Into the New Heart of Africa” (Viking Canada) by Calgary’s Will Ferguson, who won the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel “419.”

Several memoirs are also on the list — “‘Membering” (Dundurn Press) by Giller winner Austin Clarke of Toronto, and “This Is Happy” (Doubleday Canada) by Toronto’s Camilla Gibb.

Acclaimed Ottawa journalist Andrew Cohen is in the running for “Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours that Made History” (McClelland & Stewart/Signal Editions).

CBC personality Wab Kinew of Winnipeg is a contender with “The Reason You Walk” (Viking Canada).

The long list is rounded out by:

— “Dispatches from the Front: The Life of Matthew Halton, Canada’s Voice at War” by David Halton of Ottawa (Penguin Random House Canada)

— “Zoroaster’s Children: & Other Travels” by Marius Kociejowski of London (Biblioasis)

— “Genius at Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway” by Toronto’s Siobhan Roberts (Bloomsbury U.S.A.)

— “The Prison Book Club” by Ann Walmsley of Toronto (Viking Canada)

— “Into the Blizzard: Walking the Fields of the Newfoundland Dead” by Michael Winter of Toronto (Doubleday Canada)

Jurors Susanne Boyce, Steven Galloway and Stephen J. Toope read 120 books submitted by 39 publishers.

Organizers say Galloway is stepping down from the jury for the rest of the process for personal reasons. Previous juror Joseph Kertes will take his place.

The short list will be unveiled on Jan. 13 and the winner will be announced on March 7.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version incorrectly had David Halton’s city of residence as Toronto instead of Ottawa.