 Home Ryga Journal Ryga Chapbooks Buy & Subscribe Submissions Festival Readings Ryga Week & Award About George Ryga Contact  THE RYGA INITIATIVE AT OKANAGAN COLLEGE in association with the Okanagan Institute
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 GEORGE RYGA WEEK NOVEMBER 7-13 2010  George Ryga Week is proclaimed by the Provincial Government and the Office
of the Lieutenant Governor to honour the contribution Ryga made to the creative
community. In 2009 a gala celebration was held November 7 in the Okanagan College Vernon Campus Theatre. The first issue of Ryga: A Journal of Provocations was launched with readings by
the editor, Sean Johnston, and some of the contributors. Ken Smedley of the George
Ryga Centre in Summerland presented the Ryga Award, and the winner read from the
book. The adjudicator of the 2009 Ryga Award was Robert MacDonald, Publisher in Residence
of Okanagan College, who also gave a brief presentation on the winning book:The seige of Sarajevo - the longest city seige in the history of modern warfare - stretched from April 1992 to February 1996, and killed 10,000 people, including women and children. It was "ethnic cleansing" at its worst, and one of the most senseless and brutal acts of savagery in modern times. In his novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway shows how life under siege presents impossible moral and ethical choices. One the one hand it is a story about survival in spite of appalling odds. On the other, it demonstrates how the human spirit can rise above circumstances, and how hope can persist in the face of fear, hatred and suffering. The book is a great moral tale for our time, and a stirring tribute to art. In presenting the award, he read from an article by the author in the National Post: "Most contemporary literature is overwhelmingly reflective, personal and not ripped from the headlines. And that's the way it should be. Novels are not twitter, they are not sitcoms and they are not action movies, and the moment they are, literature ceases to exist. "Yes, Canadian literature is subsidized. So are tourism, mining, forestry, automobile production, small business and oil. In 2006 the petroleum industry alone received $1.4-billion in government subsidies in the form of tax breaks. I'll apologize for our subsidies when they apologize for theirs, because what writers do is every bit as important and vital as putting together cars, docking cruise ships or cutting down trees. "I'm proud to be a Canadian writer. I consider it an honour to travel outside the country as a representative of Canadian literature. Instead of focusing on the books we don't like, let's each of us find some that we do and read them, engage with them and as a result engage with society as a whole, and take some pleasure in what we, a country with a short history and relatively small population, have been able to accomplish in the world of literature."
The George Ryga Awardfor Social Awareness in LiteratureSponsored by The George Ryga Society, BC Bookworld, CBC Radio (Kelowna) and Okanagan College, this annual literary prize is awarded to a BC writer who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a new book. Excerpts are aired on CBC Radio One's Daybreak Program. The award is announced in conjunction with George Ryga Week in November . Winners receive a full-page advertisement in BC BookWorld and a commemorative sculpture by Reg Kienast.The criteria for the award are: 1. social
awareness - in keeping with Alberta-born George Ryga's status as a marginalized
Ukrainian Canadian who was deeply concerned with justice, the judges will select an
outstanding work of both literary and social value
that opens up discussion of social and cultural issues.
2. bc writer - a writer who has lived in BC for three of the last five years.
3. book - a full-length book (not a chapbook)
published during the preceding calendar year. PREVIOUS AWARD WINNERS2004 - Maggie De Vries, Missing SarahAdjudicator: Craig McLuckie, Chair, English, Okanagan College 2005 - Robert Hunter, The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An Environmental Odyssey Adjudicator: Ross Tyner, Chair, Library, Okanagan College 2006 - Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane, In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver Adjudicator: Myrna Kostash 2007 - Harold Rhenisch, The Wolves at Evelyn Adjudicator, Sharon Josephson, Chair, Communications, Okanagan College 2008 - Leilah Nadir, The Orange Trees of Baghdad Adjudicator: Ivan Townshend, Chair, Geography, University of Lethbridge 2009 - Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo Adjudicator: Robert MacDonald, Publisher in Residence, Okanagan College
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