Fil-Canadian wins Manitoba Book Award

Filipina Canadian playwright Primrose Madayag Knazan is a co-winner in this year’s The Manitoba Book Awards. (Photo: McNally Robinson website)

Filipina Canadian author and playwright Primrose Madayag Knazan is co-winner in this year’s The Manitoba Book Awards.

Her book Lessons in Fusion was chosen as the McNally Robinson Book for Young People (Older Category) together with  The Stone Child: The Misewa Saga, Book Three by David A. Robertson.

Lessons in Fusion is about embracing multiple, complex identities while challenging the expectations of others, Madayag Knazan said.

The novel’s 16-year-old Sarah has a successful blog creating fusion recipes. When she is invited to compete on “Cyber Chef,” her twists on her Baba’s recipes are not enough to pique the palette of the show’s producers, and she is pushed to present dishes that represent her Filipino culture. To survive “Cyber Chef” and find her cultural identity, Sarah must discover why her mother turned her back on all things Filipino, and learn the true meaning of fusion.

Madayag-Knazan worked with Great Plains Publications to conceptualize the young-adult novel about food and her sons’ experiences growing up with blended heritage: they are half-Ashkenazi Jew and half-Filipino.

Madayag Knazan writes from a distinctly Filipinx-Canadian, Jewish, and woman’s perspective and her works have been produced by the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, and Sarasvati Productions and have been featured at the International Writers Festival, CBC Radio, the Winnipeg Fringe and others. She is also a food writer for the Filipino Journal and a social media influencer.

In 2021, she won the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition.

Madayag Knazan’s work, “Precipice,” was chosen by the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, together with the Harold Green Jewish Theatre, Segal Centre for the Arts, The Winnipeg Jewish Theatre and Neptune Theatre, a report of kulturacollective.com said.

The other nominees in Madayag Knazan’s category were The Gift of the Little People by William Dumas, illustration by Rhian Brynjolson; Treaty Words: For as Long as the Rivers Flow by Aimée Craft and The Undercover Book List by Colleen Nelson.

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The Manitoba Book Awards / Les Prix du livre du Manitoba celebrates excellence in Manitoba writing, publishing, book design and illustration.

The very first award – the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award – was presented back in 1989 and now there are more than a dozen different categories recognizing Manitoba books and writers, according to its website.

Submissions were accepted in the fall. Juries of writers and industry professionals from across Canada consider all eligible submissions, with shortlists and recipients announced each spring. Some of the awards are unilingual (either English or French), some bilingual (French/English), and some multilingual (French/English/Indigenous languages). Many are offered annually, and a handful are biennial.

The Manitoba Book Awards / Les Prix du livre du Manitoba coalition includes The Winnipeg International Writers Festival, the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, the Manitoba Writers’ Guild, and the Winnipeg Public Library.