2006 Governor General's Literary Awards

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada and the winners of the 2006 Governor General's Literary Awards.


Fiction category winner, author Peter Behrens stands proudly while his laurels are being read aloud during the official ceremonies at Rideau Hall Wednesday evening. During his speech he noted that the last time he was at Rideau Hall he was as a tour guide in his youth.

From the Canada Council website:
Peter Behrens is a native of Montreal, where he was educated at Lower Canada College, Concordia and McGill. He held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University, and was a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Night Driving, a short-story collection, was published in 1987. His stories and essays have appeared in Brick, Best Canadian Stories, Best Canadian Essays, The Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Night and many anthologies. His first story published in the US, in The Atlantic Monthly, was optioned in Hollywood; he has written four feature screenplays. The Law of Dreams is his first novel. Peter Behrens lives in Brooklin, Maine.

Jury's comment
The Law of Dreams is an epic novel populated by extraordinary characters traversing the bleak moment of famine in Irish history. Peter Behrens, with authorial imagination and a wealth of historical detail, guides us through the blight with unparalleled intimacy.