Who Won Canada Reads This Year?
(Photo: Joanna Roselli/CBC)
Canada Reads, CBC’s annual books competition, has crowned its winner.
On April 16, Loghan Paylor’s 2024 debut novel, The Cure for Drowning, was the last novel standing in the Canadian books contest that’s been dubbed a “literary Survivor.”
Paylor’s novel triumphed against finalist Searching for Terry Punchout by Tyler Hellard.
Longlisted for the Giller Prize in 2024, The Cure for Drowning is set in Southern Ontario during the Second World War. The novel tells the story of Kit, a non-binary “daredevil in boy’s clothes,” who forms an intense connection with a local doctor’s daughter and her brother. All three are thrown into the adult world as the war rages, with Kit trading life on a farm for that of a Royal Air Force navigator.
JUNO Award-winning singer-songwriter Tegan Quin championed the novel during the debates, arguing it “opened eyes and hearts” among the competition’s other panellists, which included hockey analyst Steve “Dangle” Glynn, filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, actor Josh Dela Cruz and YouTuber Morgann Book.
“I believe, deeply, it will open eyes and hearts in this country,” Quin added. “The rollback on trans rights, the attack on the LGBTQ community and marginalized communities in general, and this binary that we live in remains absolutely 100 percent a pressing issue.”
Paylor told CBC that winning the competition was an “incredible” feeling and one that’s especially meaningful during a moment in time where there “are a lot of forces trying to divide us and keep us apart.”
Each year, Canada Reads pairs five books with five celebrity or high-profile advocates and sets them up to debate their merits in a week-long debate that sees books voted out one by one. This year’s reading list also included A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt, Foe by Iain Reid, and It’s Different This Time by Joss Richard.
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Flannery Dean is a writer based in Hamilton, Ont. She’s written for The Narwhal, the Globe and Mail and The Guardian.
