Charles Foran named as recipient of $50,000 Writers’ Trust Fellowship

Charles Foran, Toronto-based author of 11 books, has won the $50,000 Writers' Trust Fellowship. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-James Lahey MANDATORY CREDIT

TORONTO — Charles Foran, Toronto-based author of 11 books, has won the $50,000 Writers’ Trust Fellowship.

The fellowship is awarded to a promising writer to ease the burden of financial concerns and allow for as much creative freedom as possible.

Foran was named the 2018 recipient Tuesday evening at a black-tie gala at The Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, an event expected to raise more than $250,000 in support of Writers’ Trust programming.

It’s the latest literary plaudit for Foran, whose accolades include the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Charles Taylor Prize and a Governor General’s Literary Award.

The Order of Canada member swept the book awards circuit in 2011 for his biography ”Mordecai: The Life & Times” on Montreal literary provocateur Mordecai Richler.

Foran’s bibliography also includes a book of literary and travel essays, the novel “Planet Lolita” about coming of age in the digital era and “The Last House of Ulster,” a non-fiction account of a family in conflict-torn Northern Ireland.

In its citation, the Writers’ Trust hailed Foran as “an indispensable voice in Canadian literature, a masterful storyteller who has helped us understand ourselves and the world around us one book, one essay, one campaign at a time.”

Previous Writers’ Trust fellows include Eden Robinson, Michael Crummey, and Miriam Toews.

The Canadian Press