Lubrin wins Carol Shields Prize

Canisia Lubrin is the 2025 winner of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her novel Code Noir (Soft Skull).

Chosen from a shortlist of five, Lubrin receives US$150,000 (A$236,675) and a five-night stay at Fogo Island Inn.

Code Noir is Lubrin’s debut fiction, linking 59 pieces of fiction to the 59 articles within decrees passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. Each piece of fiction is preluded by black-and-white drawings by visual artist Torkwase Dyson.

The publisher said: ‘Code Noir ranges in style from contemporary realism to dystopian literature, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction. This inventive, shape-shifting braid of narratives exists far beyond the boundaries of an official decree.’

Lubrin (Voodoo Hypothesis, The Dyzgraphxst) lives in Whitby, Ontario, and coordinates the creative writing MFA at the University of Guelph. Her work has been recognised in the Griffin Poetry Prize, OCM Bocas Prize, the Writers’ Trust of Canada Rising Stars award, and a Windham-Campbell Prize for poetry. The Globe & Mail also named her Poet of the Year.

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is awarded annually ‘to celebrate creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States’.

The 2024 winner was VV Ganeshananthan for her novel Brotherless Night (Penguin).

More information about the award is available on the Carol Shields Prize website.

Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

Category: International news