Modris Eksteins Wins 2013 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction

Premier Christy Clark and British Columbia Achievement chair Keith Mitchell announced today that Modris Eksteins is the winner of the 2013 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for "Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age."

Modris Eksteins, professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto, was presented with the $40,000 prize by Hon. Ben Stewart, Minister of Citizens' Services and Open Government, at a ceremony in Vancouver that also celebrated finalists George Bowering for "Pinboy: A Memoir," Robert R. Fowler for "A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda" and Candace Savage for "A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape."

British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction is one of Canada's major national book prizes and the only one to originate in B.C. The annual award is presented by the British Columbia Achievement Foundation, an independent foundation established by the Province in 2003 to celebrate excellence in the arts, humanities, enterprise, and community service.

The jury cited "Solar Dance" as a "fascinating work of cultural history, and a provocative analysis of the roots of the modern era as it developed in the social and political turmoil of the early 20th century."