Novelists Esi Edugyan and William Deverell are among the finalists for the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize.
The $5,000 prize is for the best local book published in 2011. Edugyan is cited for her novel, Half-Blood Blues, which last year won the Giller Prize. Deverell is up for his novel I'll See You in My Dreams.
Other finalists for the prize (open to fiction, non-fiction and poetry) are: Rachel Fisher, Heather Stretch and Robin Tunnicliffe for All the Dirt: Reflections on Organic Farming; Madeline Sonik for Afflictions and Departures and Mark Zuehlke for Breakout from Juno: Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign, July 4-August 21, 1944.
Finalists for the $5,000 Bolen Books Children's Book Prize were also announced. They are: Kit Pearson (The Whole Truth), Pamela Porter (I'll Be Watching) and Caitlyn Vernon (Nowhere Else on Earth: Standing Tall for the Great Bear Rainforest).
Winners will be announced at a gala event at the Union Club of British Columbia on Oct. 10.
