deWitt Wins 2024 Leacock Medal
Press Release
The president, Daphne Mainprize, and board of Stephen Leacock Associates are pleased to announce Patrick deWitt is the winner of the 2024 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his novel The Librarianist, published by House of Anansi Press. The award of the medal is accompanied by a prize of $25,000.
Patrick deWitt is the author of the novels French Exit (an international bestseller and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), The Sisters Brothers (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Leacock Medal for Humour, and the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; also a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize), and the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor and Ablutions. Born in British Columbia, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.
The two runners-up, Ali Bryan (for her novel Coq, published by Freehand Books) and Deborah Willis (for her novel Girlfriend on Mars, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada) each receive a prize of $5,000.
The board congratulates all the winners for their splendid efforts. It also acknowledges and appreciates the efforts of all the authors who submitted books for this year’s medal.
A Canada-wide panel of judges had narrowed 74 initial
submissions to form a long list of 11 highly recommended works, with only three
books eventually being selected for the shortlist.
The medal winner was announced at the Leacock Award Gala Dinner in Orillia on
Saturday, June 22, 2024.
The Leacock Medal is named in memory of Stephen Leacock; humourist, author, economist and lecturer, and is generously sponsored by the Dunkley Charitable Foundation.
(Image Supplied) Main: Stephen Leacock Associates president, Daphne Mainprize, presents Patrick deWitt with the 2024 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
