Two Globe and Mail writers, London-based foreign correspondent Douglas Saunders and Ottawa-based political affairs columnist Lawrence Martin, are in the running for the 2010-2011 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for excellence in political writing.
Saunders and Martin are among five finalists for the annual $25,000 first prize, nominated for their respective books, Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World and Harperland: The Politics of Control.
The other nominated titles are The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars and Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie by Tim Cook, Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America by Shelagh D. Grant, and Anna Porter's The Ghosts of Europe: Journeys through Central Europe's Troubled Past and Uncertain Future.
The prize, started in 2000 to honour the late Liberal MP Shaughnessy Cohen, will be awarded at a ceremony in Ottawa Feb. 16. Each runner-up will receive $5,000.