# RBC Taylor Prize

The RBC Taylor Prize (2000–2020), formerly known as the Charles Taylor Prize, was a Canadian literary award, presented by the Charles Taylor Foundation to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction. It was named for Charles P. B. Taylor, a noted Canadian historian and writer. Instituted in 2000, the 2020 prize was the final year the prize was awarded. The prize was originally presented every two years until 2004, and became an annual award from 2004 onwards. The monetary value of the award increased over the years. The final award in 2020 had a monetary value of $30,000.
The award adopted its present name in December 2013, when RBC Wealth Management was announced as the new corporate sponsor. In addition, under RBC's sponsorship the award added a second $10,000 award for an emerging Canadian literary non-fiction writer between the ages of 18 and 35, to be chosen by the winner of the main award. This award was presented for the first time at the 2014 ceremony.
In 2018 the new RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers Mentorship Program was unveiled. This was a professional development program designed to support the next generation of Canadian writers and was part of the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers Award, a distinction that was given annually to a Canadian author whose work embodies the pursuit of excellence in literary non-fiction.
The mentorship program was made available to five Canadian non-fiction writers, who were selected in partnership with a national network of university and college writing programs. These students were paired with the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize shortlisted authors, who would help support their career development and growth.
In 2020, the organizers announced that the 2020 award would be the final presentation of the award.

## Winners and nominees

RBC Taylor Prize winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2000 | Wayne Johnston | Baltimore's Mansion | Winner |
| 2000 | Witold Rybczynski | A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century | Finalist |
| 2000 | Eric Wright | Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man | Finalist |
| 2000 | Lisa Appignanesi | Losing the Dead | Finalist |
| 2000 | Wayson Choy | Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood | Finalist |
| 2002 | Carol Shields | Jane Austen | Winner |
| 2002 | Nega Mezlekia | Notes from the Hyena's Belly: Memories of my Ethiopian Boyhood | Finalist |
| 2002 | Margaret Visser | The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery and Meaning in an Ordinary Church | Finalist |
| 2002 | A. B. McKillop | The Spinster and the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells and the Mystery of the Purloined Past | Finalist |
| 2002 | Michael David Kwan | Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China | Finalist |
| 2002 | Clark Blaise | Time Lord: The Remarkable Canadian who Missed His Train and Changed the World | Finalist |
| 2004 | Isabel Huggan | Belonging: Home Away From Home | Winner |
| 2004 | J. Edward Chamberlin | If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? | Finalist |
| 2004 | Gertrud Mackprang Baer | In the Shadow of Silence: From Hitler Youth to Allied Internment, A Young Woman's Story of Truth and Denial | Finalist |
| 2004 | Warren Cariou | Lake of the Prairies: A Story of Belonging | Finalist |
| 2004 | Margaret MacMillan | Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World | Finalist |
| 2005 | Charles Montgomery | The Last Heathen: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia | Winner |
| 2005 | Paul William Roberts | A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq | Finalist |
| 2005 | Christopher Dewdney | Acquainted With the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark | Finalist |
| 2005 | Patrick Lane | There is a Season: A Memoir in the Garden | Finalist |
| 2006 | J. B. MacKinnon | Dead Man in Paradise | Winner |
| 2006 | Laura M. MacDonald | Curse of the Narrows: the Halifax Explosion of 1917 | Finalist |
| 2006 | John Terpstra | The Boys, or Waiting for the Electrician's Daughter | Finalist |
| 2006 | James Chatto | The Greek for Love: A Memoir of Corfu | Finalist |
| 2007 | Rudy Wiebe | Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest | Winner |
| 2007 | John English | Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Vol. One: 1919-1968 | Finalist |
| 2007 | Ross King | The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism | Finalist |
| 2008 | Richard Gwyn | John A.: The Man Who Made Us: The Life and Times of John A. Macdonald, Vol. One: 1815-1867 | Winner |
| 2008 | Lorna Goodison | From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People | Finalist |
| 2008 | Anna Porter | Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust | Finalist |
| 2008 | Kevin Bazzana | Lost Genius: The Story of a Forgotten Musical Maverick | Finalist |
| 2008 | David Gilmour | The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son | Finalist |
| 2009 | Tim Cook | Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917-1918 | Winner |
| 2009 | Ana Siljak | Angel of Vengeance: The Girl Assassin, the Governor of St. Petersburg and Russia's Revolutionary World | Finalist |
| 2009 | Elizabeth Abbott | Sugar: A Bittersweet History | Finalist |
| 2010 | Ian Brown | The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search For His Disabled Son | Winner |
| 2010 | John English | Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 | Finalist |
| 2010 | Daniel Poliquin | René Lévesque | Finalist |
| 2010 | Kenneth Whyte | The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst | Finalist |
| 2011 | Charles Foran | Mordecai: The Life & Times | Winner |
| 2011 | Ross King | Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven | Finalist |
| 2011 | Stevie Cameron | On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver’s Missing Women | Finalist |
| 2011 | George Sipos | The Geography of Arrival: A Memoir | Finalist |
| 2011 | Merrily Weisbord | The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das | Finalist |
| 2012 | Andrew Westoll | The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery | Winner |
| 2012 | Madeline Sonik | Afflictions & Departures: Essays | Finalist |
| 2012 | Charlotte Gill | Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe | Finalist |
| 2012 | Wade Davis | Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest | Finalist |
| 2012 | JJ Lee | The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son and a Suit | Finalist |
| 2013 | Andrew Preston | Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy | Winner |
| 2013 | Sandra Djwa | Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page | Finalist |
| 2013 | Ross King | Leonardo and The Last Supper | Finalist |
| 2013 | Carol Bishop-Gwyn | The Pursuit of Perfection: A Life of Celia Franca | Finalist |
| 2013 | Tim Cook | Warlords: Borden, Mackenzie King, and Canada’s World Wars | Finalist |
| 2014 | Thomas King | The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America | Winner |
| 2014 | David Stouck | Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life | Finalist |
| 2014 | Graeme Smith | The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan | Finalist |
| 2014 | Charlotte Gray | The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master, and the Trial That Shocked a Country | Finalist |
| 2014 | J. B. MacKinnon | The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be | Finalist |
| 2015 | Plum Johnson | They Left Us Everything | Winner |
| 2015 | M. G. Vassanji | And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa | Finalist |
| 2015 | Kathleen Winter | Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a New Northwest Passage | Finalist |
| 2015 | David O'Keefe | One Day in August: The Untold Story Behind Canada’s Tragedy at Dieppe | Finalist |
| 2015 | Barbara Taylor | The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in Our Times | Finalist |
| 2016 | Rosemary Sullivan | Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva | Winner |
| 2016 | David Halton | Dispatches from the Front: The Life of Matthew Halton, Canada’s Voice at War | Finalist |
| 2016 | Ian Brown | Sixty: The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning? | Finalist |
| 2016 | Wab Kinew | The Reason You Walk | Finalist |
| 2016 | Camilla Gibb | This Is Happy | Finalist |
| 2017 | Ross King | Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies | Winner |
| 2017 | Max Eisen | By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz | Finalist |
| 2017 | Marc Raboy | Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World | Finalist |
| 2017 | Matti Friedman | Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story | Finalist |
| 2017 | Diane Schoemperlen | This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications | Finalist |
| 2018 | Tanya Talaga | Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City | Winner |
| 2018 | Max Wallace | In the Name of Humanity | Finalist |
| 2018 | Stephen R. Bown | Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska | Finalist |
| 2018 | James Maskalyk | Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine | Finalist |
| 2018 | Daniel Coleman | Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place | Finalist |
| 2019 | Kate Harris | Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Roads | Winner |
| 2019 | Elizabeth Hay | All Things Consoled: A Daughter’s Memoir | Finalist |
| 2019 | Ian Hampton | Jan in 35 Pieces: A Memoir in Music | Finalist |
| 2019 | Bill Gaston | Just Let Me Look at You: On Fatherhood | Finalist |
| 2019 | Darrel J. McLeod | Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age | Finalist |
| 2020 | Mark Bourrie | Bush Runner | Winner |
| 2020 | Robyn Doolittle | Had It Coming | Finalist |
| 2020 | Jessica McDiarmid | Highway of Tears | Finalist |
| 2020 | Timothy Winegard | The Mosquito | Finalist |
| 2020 | Ziya Tong | The Reality Bubble | Finalist |

## RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award

The RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award was instituted for the first time in 2014. The award was presented to an emerging writer selected by the winner of that year's primary award, and consisted of $10,000 and a mentorship from the writer who made the selection.
In 2018, the RBC Taylor Foundation also announced the creation of a mentorship program for writers who had not yet published their first non-fiction manuscript. Five writers would be selected for the mentorship each year, each receiving mentorship from one of the shortlisted main prize authors.
* 2014 - Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
* 2015 - Iain Reid
* 2016 - Adnan Khan
* 2017 - Cassi Smith
* 2018 - Alicia Elliott
* 2019 - Jessica J. Lee
* 2020 - Simone Dalton