Canadian journalist Nadim Roberts has been selected for a US$40,000 grant to fund his book about a storied highway project in the Northwest Territories.
The U.K.-based Canadian writer is one of 10 recipients of the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant.
The Whiting Foundation says Roberts’ forthcoming book “The Highway” uses the history of the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway to explore the legacy of colonialism and residential schools in Canada’s Far North.
The book expands on “Mangilaluk’s Highway,” a 2017 article Roberts wrote for Granta.
It tells the story of three boys who ran away from residential school in 1972 and attempted to walk hundreds of kilometres from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk — a journey only one of them survived.
“The Highway” is slated to be published by Signal in Canada and Spiegel & Grau in the U.S.
Judges with the Whiting Foundation, which is based in the United States, say Roberts’ book is “rendered with the delicate light and shadow only achieved through sustained, up-close reporting.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2024.
