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Endowments and Prizes

Richard B. Wright, on winning the 2001
Governor General's Literary Award in fiction, for Clara Callan :

"If … fiction reflects human experience in an honest and authentic manner, it may provide a pathway into a better understanding of ourselves and others. And despite the doubters, there seems to be within all of us an inescapable need for narrative; in whatever form we receive them, stories are as necessary to our emotional health as companionship and love…. Without words we are reduced in our capacity to endure vicissitudes or express our wonder at being alive. The English writer Edwin Muir once wrote, "life is a difficult country and our home." "Perhaps the most reliable map for making our way through this difficult country are the stories and poems, the plays and films that honestly examine and celebrate this sometimes frightening and often wondrous journey."

Tom Yu, Mike Kaltsas and Patrick Evans (front to back), of the architectural collective MEDIUM, winners of the $10,000 Ronald J. Thom Award for Early Design Achievement. (Photo: P. Bernath / CP)

Brian Macdonald, AA Bronson, Julie Hivon and George Elliott Clarke among 120 Canada Council prize winners

Veteran choreographer-director Brian Macdonald, visual artist AA Bronson, media artist and writer Julie Hivon and poet George Elliott Clarke were among the 120 prize winners honoured by the Canada Council in the last year.

Brian Macdonald was the first winner of the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts. The $50,000 prize to the internationally-renowned choreographer and director of opera and musical theatre, who has long been associated with the Stratford Festival, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, was presented by Council Chair Jean-Louis Roux and philanthropist Walter Carsen. The prize recognizes artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement by a Canadian artist in dance, theatre or music. Walter Carsen endowed the awards in perpetuity through a gift of $1.1 million.

AA Bronson, associated for some 25 years with the artists' collective General Idea, was a double Council prize winner. Bronson and his General Idea partners, the late Felix Partz and the late Jorge Zontal, were the recipients of the Bell Canada Award in Video Art ($10,000) for their vast body of work, which included installation, video, painting, sculpture, photography and performance.

Bronson was also honoured for his over all work, as a solo artist and a member of General Idea, with a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. His co-winners in these Awards, valued at $15,000 each, were artists Charles Gagnon, Edward Poitras, David Rokeby, Barbara Steinman and Irene F. Whittome as well as curator-collector-philanthropist Ydessa Hendeles. The winners were also presented with an original work of art, created by Jamelie Hassan, a 2001 award winner.

Julie Hivon has a versatile career under way as an author, screenwriter, producer and director. Her first short film, Baiser d'enfant (1995), won several awards and has been shown in some 20 festivals around the world. For her all-encompassing talent (which has also focussed on television, video and animated film), she was awarded the one-time Millennium Prize (for artists under 30) from the Canada Council's Fund for Future Generations. Her co-winners were playwright Olivier Choinière and musician Liu Fang. The awards totalled $15,000.

George Elliott Clarke, award-winning author of the verse-novel Whylah Falls, was singled out in the poetry category of the Governor General's Literary Awards for Execution Poems. The complete list of winners (English and French literature, respectively) is: Richard B. Wright and Andrée A. Michaud for fiction; Clarke and Paul Chanel Malenfant for poetry; Kent Stetson and Normand Chaurette for drama; Thomas Homer-Dixon and Renée Dupuis for non-fiction; Arthur Slade and Christiane Duchesne for children's literature; Mireille Levert and Bruce Roberts for children's book illustration; and the team of Fred A. Reed and David Homel, and Michel Saint-Germain for translation. The total value of the Governor General's Literary Awards is $210,000. The Bank of Montreal has been an important sponsor of these awards for 15 years.

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