There was more than just a happy ending for a Merville-raised novelist Wednesday night in Victoria.
Jack Hodgins received the 2011 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize during a ceremony for his book The Master of Happy Endings.
Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin and Brian H. Butler of Butler Brothers Supplies presented Hodgins with a $5,000 cheque for his novel, for best book published in the preceding year in the categories of fiction, literary non-fiction and poetry.
In July, Hodgins officially received his permanent place in the Comox Valley, as he was welcomed as the latest addition to the Comox Valley Walk of Achievement.
Hodgins has written more than 15 novels and has stories and articles published in several magazines in Canada, France, Australia and the U.S. He is also the subject of a National Film Board film, Jack Hodgins' Island and a book, Jack Hodgins and His Work.
He has also won the Governor General's Award, the Canada-Australia Prize, the Commonwealth Prize and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In 2009 he was appointed to the Order of Canada.
"The Master of Happy Endings is an exuberant novel about the power of narrative to serve as a compass for human odysseys," stated the jurors' citation. "Hodgins' story is as much about the terrain of the heart and spirit as it is about the physical world and he moves confidently from one to the other, his literary skill in service to his rich imagination."
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