Concordia does it write in several contests

The prize Sherry Simon won at the Quebec Writer’s Federation gala on Nov. 22 was named for Mavis Gallant, who was recently awarded the Prix Athanase-David. Gallant, now 84, has lived in Paris for many years. She was the first English-speaking Montreal writer to receive Quebec’s highest literary honour.

Rawi Hage, who won two QWF awards that night for his novel, De Niro’s Game, is an alumnus of the Photography program at Concordia.

Born in Beirut, he spent nine years in Lebanon during its civil war, and based his novel on the friendship of two young men during that conflict. His awards were the McAuslan First Book Prize and the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction.

Jon Paul Fiorentino, a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry for The Theory of the Loser Class, delivered a moving eulogy to the late Rob Allen, longtime teacher of writing in the English Department, at the QWF awards night.

Peter Behrens, who won the 2006 Governor-General’s Literary Award in the fiction category, is another alumnus.

He graduated with a degree in history in 1976, and Terry Byrnes (English) says he was permitted to attend the graduate seminar in creative writing in 1976 despite his undergraduate status. He went on to a career as a writer, including short stories, essays and screenplays, and now lives in Maine. His prizewinning novel, The Law of Dreams, is a re-imagining of the Irish famine of the mid-19th century.

Hugh Hazelton, who teaches Spanish, won the GG in the translation category.