Rosemary Sullivan awards $10K emerging writer prize to Adnan Khan

Rosemary Sullivanhas named Adnan Khan the winner of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award.

The $10,000 prize is given annually to a Canadian author working on a major writing project. The recipient is chosen by the most recent RBC Taylor Prize winner. Thisyear's award went to SullivanforStalin's Daughter, a biography of Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

"Charged with the onerous, if delightful, responsibility of selecting an emerging writer, I began to look for a young writer who wrote elegantly, was clearly a reader, and was engaged with significant obsessions. Adnan Khan, having already crafted his own voice, and so ready to interrogate himself and our culture, seemed the perfect choice," said Sullivan in a news release.

In addition to the prize money, Khan will also be mentored by Sullivan through the first draft of his book.

"It is an honour to be the 2016 recipient of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. The prize money will provide me the space and time necessary to commit myself to my work. It is humbling to be recognized in a field full of such astonishing talents," said Khan in a press release.

Khan is currently working on his Masters in Fine Arts and was recently nominated for a National Magazine Award for his essay "Our Brownness Does Not Belong Here," published inHazlitt.

Last year's award was given toIain Reid, author ofThe Truth About Luck. He was picked by Plum Johnson.