The Atlantic Book Awards shortlist was last week at an event in Halifax – among them, two books from Cape Breton University Press.
The Language of This Land, Mi’kma’ki, by Trudy Sable and Bernie Francis has been shortlisted for the inaugural Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing, sponsored by Marquis Book Printing.
The Language of this Land, Mi’kma’ki, released in March 2012, is an exploration of Mi’kmaw world view as expressed in language, legends, song and dance – these include not only place names and geologic history, but act as maps of the landscape. In this book, Sable and Francis illustrate the fluid nature of reality inherent in its expression – its embodiment in networks of relationships with the landscape. Language has sustained the Mi’kmaq to the present day, a product of a lineage of Elders who spoke it, who danced the dances and walked this land, Mi’kma’ki, carrying its traditions forward despite centuries of cultural disruption, discrimination and degradation.
French Taste in Atlantic Canada – 1604-1758: A Gastronomic History / Le goût Français au Canada Atlantique 1604-1758 : Une Histoire Gastronomique, by Anne Marie Lane Jonah and Chantal Véchambre has been shortlisted for the Dartmouth Book Award (Non-fiction).
The book is an exploration of how the first generations of French who settled in the region learned about, reacted to and began to work with local food knowledge and ingredients. Understanding how people used the food around them, how they combined it with imported foods and techniques, and how they adapted and shared that knowledge, opens a door to the everyday world of the French explorers and colonists in what would become Atlantic Canada.
Since 2006, books published by Cape Breton University Press have consistently been contenders for these important annual regional literary awards.
The Atlantic Book Awards, celebrating the best in Atlantic Canada literature, will take place Thursday, May 16, at Alderney Landing, Dartmouth.
