Sharing a commitment to emerging Canadian talent, the Charles Taylor Foundation and RBC Wealth Management are pleased to announce that Adnan Khan is the third recipient of its annual Emerging Writer Award, chosen by Rosemary Sullivan, winner of the 2016 RBC Taylor Prize for her bookStalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva. The Award consists of a $10,000 cash prize and mentorship by Ms Sullivan.
Delighted at the news, RBC Taylor Prize Founder Noreen Taylor commented: “The process of seeking out a talented, emerging author and offering the opportunity for mentorship from the RBC Taylor Prize winner is important for writers who are new to the profession. Becoming a professional writer demands a different set of skills than those honed in developing the craft of good writing. To date, there is no better way to gain those skills than to be mentored by a writer who has already succeeded. I know that Rosemary Sullivan will be an exceptional mentor and I have every confidence that Adnan will take full advantage of this rare opportunity.”
Vijay Parmar, president of RBC PH&N Investment Counsel added: “We are thrilled to present the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award as we believe that the key to cultivating the artistic talents of our country’s next generation of writers is through mentorship.“
In accepting the award, Adnan Khan said: “It is an honour to be the 2016 recipient of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. The prize money will provide me the space and time necessary to commit myself to my work. It is humbling to be recognized in a field full of such astonishing talents.”
“Charged with the onerous, if delightful, responsibility of selecting an emerging writer, I began to look for a young writer who wrote elegantly, was clearly a reader, and was engaged with significant obsessions. Adnan Khan, having already crafted his own voice, and so ready to interrogate himself and our culture, seemed the perfect choice,” said Rosemary Sullivan.
The RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award was established to provide recognition and assistance to a Canadian published author who is working on a significant writing project, preferably but not limited to the genre of literary non-fiction. Through mentorship from the current RBC Taylor Prize winner and the cash award, it is intended that the recipient will be able to progress toward the creation of a first draft.
Adnan Khan, who also received a Constance Rooke Scholarship from the University of Guelph and an Emerging Playwrights Grant from the Toronto Arts Council, was recently nominated for a National Magazine Award for his essay “Our Brownness Does Not Belong Here.” He is the co-host of Speakeasy, a monthly reading series featuring authors Ayelet Tsabari, Madhur Anand, Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Jon Chan Simpson and Zoe Whittall, among others. Having completed creative thesis work under Lee Maracle and studied playwriting with Djanet Sears, he is currently working on a novel and completing his Masters in Fine Arts. He is fluent in English and Urdu.
Rosemary Sullivan has written poetry, short fiction, biography, literary criticism, reviews, and articles and has edited numerous anthologies. Her biography of Gwendolyn MacEwan, Shadow Maker, won the Governor General’s Literary Award, the UBC President’s Medal for Canadian Biography, and the Toronto Book Award; Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyevaalso recently won the Weston Prize and the BC National Book Award for Canadian Non-fiction. An Officer of the Order of Canada, she lives in Toronto.
RBC Wealth Management, one of the world’s top 10 largest wealth managers, directly serves affluent, high-net-worth and ultra-high net worth clients in Canada, the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia with a full suite of banking, investment, trust and other wealth management solutions. The business also provides asset management products and services directly, and through RBC and third party distributors, to institutional and individual clients through its RBC Global Asset Management business (which includes BlueBay Asset Management). RBC Wealth Management has more than C$690 billion of assets under administration, more than C$426 billion of assets under management and approximately 4,400 financial consultants, advisors, private bankers, and trust officers. For more information, please visit
RBC is Canada’s largest bank, and one of the largest banks in the world, based on market capitalization. One of North America’s leading diversified financial services companies, it provides personal and commercial banking, wealth management services, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services on a global basis. Employing approximately 79,000 full and part-time employees who serve more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 42 other countries. For more information, please visit rbc.com.
Established biennially in 1998 by the trustees of the Charles Taylor Foundation, the RBC Taylor Prize commemorates Charles Taylor’s pursuit of excellence in the field of literary non-fiction. Awarded to the author whose book best combines a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception, the Prize consists of $25,000 for the winner and $2,000 for each of the remaining finalists, as well as promotional support to help all of the nominated books to stand out in the media, bookstores, and libraries. All authors are presented with a custom leather bound version of their shortlisted book at the awards ceremony. The trustees of the Charles Taylor Foundation are: Michael Bradley, Vijay Parmar, David Staines, Edward Taylor, Nadina Taylor, and Noreen Taylor.
The presenting sponsor of the RBC Taylor Prize is RBC Wealth Management. Its media sponsors areThe Globe and Mail (exclusive newspaper sponsor), CNW Group, The Huffington Post Canada,Maclean’s magazine, Quill & Quire magazine, and SiriusXM; its in-kind sponsors are Ben McNally Books, Event Source, IFOA, The Omni King Edward Hotel, and the Toronto Public Library Board.
More about the Prize: www.
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