John Vaillant’s Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast has won the 2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
Now entering its 24th year, the $25,000 prize is awarded annually for a book of literary nonfiction that embodies a political subject relevant to Canadian readers and Canadian political life.
The winner was selected from 46 books by the jury comprised of past prize winner Joanna Chiu, past prize finalist Dale Eisler and former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne.
Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, published as Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World in the U.K., delves into the events surrounding the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, the multibillion-dollar disaster that melted vehicles, turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon.
“Like a blazing inferno that commands our attention and awe, we cannot look away from Fire Weather,” said the jury in a press statement. “This is a deeply compelling, skillfully crafted story packed with information but completely free of ponderous lecturing.
“It is terrifying in its honest, textured description of what we have wrought in the name of progress, what we stand to lose, and where we might find the possibility of hope.”
Ottawa Morning9:01John Vaillant wins 2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
At the annual Politics and the Pen gala in Ottawa yesterday, John Vaillant was announced as the winner of this year’s prestigious prize for political writing for his book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast.
Fire Weather won the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction and was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.
Vaillant is a Vancouver-based freelance writer, novelist and nonfiction author. His first book, The Golden Spruce, which told the story of a rare tree and the man who cut it down, won the 2005 Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction. Vaillant’s second title The Tiger, a book about a man-eating tiger that terrorized a village in Russia in 1997, was a national bestseller and was a contender on Canada Reads in 2012, defended by Anne-France Goldwater.
He is also the author of the novel The Jaguar’s Children, which tells the story of two friends abandoned in the desert by smugglers who promised to bring them to the U.S.
The Shaughnessy Cohen Prize was established in honour of the outspoken and popular Member of Parliament from Windsor, Ont. It is sponsored by CN and supported by the Politics and the Pen gala.
The shortlisted authors each received $2,500 and their books are available in accessible formats through the Centre for Equitable Library Access.
Last year’s winner was Chris Turner for his book How to Be a Climate Optimist.
Other past winners include Kamal Al Solaylee, Beverley McLachlin, Jane Jacobs and Roméo Dallaire.
The Writers’ Trust of Canada is an organization that supports Canadian writers through 11 annual national literary awards, fellowships, financial grants, mentorships and more.
The titles are available in accessible formats through the Centre for Equitable Library Access.