Eden Robinson awarded $50K Writers' Trust of Canada Fellowship

Eden Robinson has been awarded the $50,000 2017 Writers' Trust of Canada Fellowshipfor her "razor-sharp precision, madcap humour and preternatural gift for dialogue."

The fellowship is given to writers who have "demonstrated exceptional creative ability and outstanding promise."The fellowship was established in 2015 and the past recipients were Michael Crummeyin 2015 and Miriam Toewsin 2016.

"I'm deeply honoured and humbled to be chosen,"said Robinsonin a news release. "The jury's faith in my career means the world to me and I plan to take this opportunity to write my heart out. Much gratitude and love."

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As part of the fellowship, Robinson will also attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Along with revealing that Robinson is the recipient for 2017, it was announced that the fellowship would become a permanent annual part of the Writers' Trust's annual programming.

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Robinsonis currently a finalist for Canada's richest literary prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, for her novelSon of a Trickster.

Her previous books includeTraplines,winner of Britain's Winifred Holtby Prize in 1997, andMonkey Beach,winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and finalist for the ScotiabankGiller Prize and Governor General's Literary Award.

Last year she won the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for a mid-career writer, worth $25,000. She is also currently a juror for the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize.

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The jury recognized Robinsonfor writing stories "that are sometimes brutal, often compassionate and always disarming."

"In the wake of the blunt trauma of colonization and its ensuing dislocation and dysfunction, Eden Robinson's characters are magnetic, resilientand spirited, even when they might be a bit twisted," the jury said in a press release.

"She brings a fresh and fearless perspective to the literature of this land. Our country is richer for the writing of Eden Robinson."

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The Writers' Trust of Canada also gives out seven annual literary prizes, including the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Those winners will be announced on Nov. 14, 2017.