Writer Rabindranath Maharaj poses for a photo by the waterfront in Ajax, Ontario on June 29, 2011. The Ajax-based author and short story writer often retreats to this lakefront to write.Michelle Siu/The Globe and Mail
Rabindranath Maharaj has won 2011 Toronto Book Award for his novel The Amazing Absorbing Boy.
The jurors said Thursday that Maharaj's book, which traces the experiences of a Trinidadian immigrant in the city, "creates a complex, witty and hopeful portrait of an imaginative youth determined to forge his own path in multi-cultural Toronto."
This is Maharaj's fifth novel. Previous works have been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Rogers Fiction Prize and the Trillium English Language Fiction Prize.
The award, which carries a $11,000 prize, was established by the city in 1974 and honours books that are evocative of Toronto.