The Kobo Emerging Writer Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented since 2015 by online e-book and audiobook retailer and eReader manufacturer Rakuten Kobo.
Until 2024, awardees received a $10,000 prize, which was increased to $20,000 in 2025. Winners are also provided with support in marketing their books. Three prizes are awarded each year to debut books published in the prior calendar year in literary fiction, non-fiction, and one of 3 genre fiction categories. Each year a different genre is honoured in the genre fiction category, rotating between mystery, romance, and speculative fiction. Since 2023, the genre fiction category has been open to books published since the prize last accepted submissions in that genre.
Winners Year Author Title Genre Reference 2015 Claire Battershill Circus Literary fiction Sam Wiebe Last of the Independents: Vancouver Noir Mystery Robyn Doolittle Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story Nonfiction 2016 Irina Kovalyova Specimen Literary fiction Nicola R. White Fury’s Kiss Romance Wab Kinew The Reason You Walk Nonfiction 2017 Lynne Kutsukake The Translation of Love Literary fiction Dee Willson A Keeper's Truth Speculative fiction Teva Harrison In-Between Days Nonfiction 2018 Omar El Akkad American War Literary fiction Sheena Kamal The Lost Ones Mystery Maria Qamar Trust No Aunty Nonfiction 2019 Nora Decter How Far We Go and How Fast Fiction Julie Evelyn Joyce Steeped in Love Romance Kate Harris Lands of Lost Borders Nonfiction 2020 Zalika Reid-Benta Frying Plantain Fiction J. R. McConvey Different Beasts Speculative fiction Jesse Thistle From the Ashes Nonfiction 2021 Michelle Good Five Little Indians Fiction Emily Hepditch The Woman in the Attic Mystery Eternity Martis They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life and Growing Up Nonfiction 2022 Pik-Shuen Fung Ghost Forest Fiction Damhnait Monaghan New Girl in Little Cove Romance Jesse Wente Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance Nonfiction 2023 Erica McKeen Tear Fiction K.S. Covert The Petting Zoos Speculative Fiction Harrison Mooney Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery Nonfiction 2024 Jamaluddin Aram Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday Fiction Keziah Weir The Mythmakers Mystery Jérémie Harris Quantum Physics Made Me Do It: A Simple Guide to the Fundamental Nature of Everything Nonfiction 2025 Scott Alexander Howard The Other Valley Fiction Leanne Toshiko Simpson Never Been Better Romance Anh N. Duong Dear Da-Lê: A Father's Memoir of the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution Nonfiction 2026 Marc Bendavid The Sapling Fiction Marcus Kliewer We Used to Live Here Speculative Fiction Lyse Doucet A People's History of Afghanistan Nonfiction
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