George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature

The George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature is a literary award given to a British Columbian author "who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a new book published in the preceding calendar year."[1] The prize was created in 2004 by Alan Twigg, publisher of BC Book World, along with John Lent of Okanagan College[2] and Ken Smedley, then working for the George Ryga Centre Society.[3] In 2014 Alan Twigg took over responsibility for the award after the sale of Ryga House. Originally the prize included a sculpture/plaque by sculptor, Reg Kienast, entitled The Censor's Golden Rope. Now it includes a cash award of $2,500.

Nominees and winners

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Year Winner Finalists
2004
Judge: Craig McLuckie
  Maggie De Vries, Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister
  • Marie Clements, Burning Vision
  • Matt Hern, Field Day: Getting Society Out of School
  • Patricia E. Roy, The Oriental Question: Consolidating a White Man's Province, 1914-41
2005
Judge: Ross Tyner
  Robert Hunter, The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An Environmental Odyssey
2006
Judge: Myrna Kotash
  Leslie A. Robertson and Dara Culhane, In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver
  • Jean Barman, Stanley Park's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point
  • Michael Kluckner, Vanishing British Columbia
2007
Judge: Sharon Josephson
  Harold Rhenisch, The Wolves at Evelyn: Journeys Through a Dark Century
2008
Judge: Ivan Townshend
  Leilah Nadir, The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family
2009
Judge: Ivan Townshend
  Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo
2010
Judge: Greg Simison
  Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori Culbert, A Thousand Dreams: Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and the Fight for Its Future
2011
Judge: Andrew Steeves
  Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song
  • Gabor Gasztonyi, A Room in the City: Photographs of Gabor Gasztonyi
  • Sylvia Olsen, Working with Wool: A Coast Salish Legacy and the Cowichan Sweater
  • Benjamin Perrin, Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking
  • John Vaillant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
2012 No award presented
2013
Judge: Angie Abdou
  Joel Bakan, Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children
  • Michael Christie, The Beggar's Garden
  • Howard White, A Hard Man to Beat: The Story of Bill White, Labour Leader, Historian, Shipyard Worker, Raconteur
2014
Judge: Sean Johnston
  Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School
2015
Jury: George Brandak, Anne Chudyk, Beverly Cramp
  Shelley Wright, Our Ice is Vanishing / Sikuvat Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change
  • Michael Buckley, Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia
  • Ann Rogers and John Hill, Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security
2016
Jury: Trevor Carolan, Jane Curry, George Johnson
  Andrew MacLeod, A Better Place on Earth: The Search for Fairness in Super Unequal British Columbia''
2017
Jury: Trevor Carolan, Jane Curry, Beverley Cramp
  Wade Davis, Wade Davis: Photographs
2018
  Travis Lupick, Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction''
2019[4]
  Rod Mickleburgh, On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement''
2020[4]
  Diane Pinch, Passion & Persistence: Fifty Years of the Sierra Club in British Columbia''
2021[4]
  Geoff Mynett, Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician''
  • Jean Barman, On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of B.C.
  • Emma Hansen, Still: Love, Loss, and Motherhood
  • Benjamin Perrin, Overdose: Heartbreak and Hope in Canada's Opioid Crisis
  • Maureen Webb, Coding Democracy: How Hackers are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism
2022[4]
  Alexandra Morton, Not On My Watch: How a Renegade Whale Biologist Took on Governments and Industry to Save Wild Salmon''

References

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  1. ^ The George Ryga Award
  2. ^ Ryga, George. "George Ryga Award Overview". BC Book Awards. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  3. ^ Ware, Grahame. "George Ryga Award: The Okanagan Years".
  4. ^ a b c d "George Ryga Award Winners". BC Book Awards. Pacific BookWorld News Society. Retrieved 16 June 2023.