WCA is pleased to announce that The Longer I’m Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada 2006– by Paul Wells has won the John W. Dafoe Prize.

The J.W. Dafoe Book Prize is awarded to the best book on Canada, Canadians, and/or Canada’s place in the world published in the previous calendar year.

The Longer I’m Prime Minister is a national bestseller, a Maclean’s Best Book, and winner of the Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.

The Jury citation follows:

“Paul Wells provides a lively, witty and perceptive insider, political portrait of Stephen Harper as a calculating, incremental politician, who set out to fundamentally change how Canadians see themselves and their place in the world. In his balanced analysis, Paul Wells has enhanced our understanding of a relatively new kind of Canadian conservatism that fiercely brands its opponents and operates in a permanent electoral mode.”

Congratulations Paul!

Congratulations to WCA author Paul Wells, who has won this year’s $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for The Longer I’m Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006- (Random House Canada).

The Writers’ Trust of Canada handed out the honour at a gala in Ottawa on the 2nd of April.

The jury praised his book as “Impeccably researched, gorgeously written and deeply insightful…an essential read for all political junkies.”

For more information, please visit:

http://www.writerstrust.com/awards/shaughnessy-cohen-prize-for-political-writing.aspx

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/paul-wells-how-to-get-inside-harpers-head/article17613679/

Jury Citation

Veteran political columnist Paul Wells has crafted a fast-paced, romping great read about a Prime Minister who is frequently described by the Parliamentary Press Gallery as dull, plodding, and inscrutable. Though viscerally funny and often biting, this book is never partisan or unfair. Impeccably researched, gorgeously written, and deeply insightful, The Longer I’m Prime Minister is an essential read for all political junkies.