Amazon Canada and The Walrus have announced that Valérie Bah, author of Subterrane (Esplanade Books/Véhicule Press), is the winner of the 2025 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Bah was announced as the winner during the in-person ceremony on June 5, 2025, at the Globe and Mail Centre in Toronto.
Subterrane is a speculative comedy comprised of a carousel of Black and Queer voices being pushed further underground by urban prosperity. New Stockholm, a metropolis like any other across North America, is unofficially divided between two worlds. It’s upwardly mobile from the centre of its gleaming eye, but this prosperity and affluence are not the focus of Zeynab’s government-funded abstract documentary. Her lens trails to the city’s margins instead, in polluted industrial wastelands such as Cipher Falls, one of New Stockholm’s last affordable neighbourhoods, where creatives and other anti-capitalist voices increasingly find themselves pushed into demeaning, dead-end jobs. In this growing underground network, Zeynab’s lens focuses on the mysterious demise of Doudou Laguerre, whose death may be related to his activism against a construction project.
Bah’s book was chosen from a shortlist of six works, which also included the following novels:
- When We Were Ashes, Andrew Boden (Goose Lane Editions)
- Juiceboxers, Benjamin Hertwig (Freehand Books)
- Oil People, David Huebert (McClelland & Stewart)
- How It Works Out, Myriam Lacroix (Doubleday Canada)
- I Hope This Finds You Well, Natalie Sue (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.)
Bah took home the $60,000 prize, while each shortlisted novelist received a $6,000 prize.
All of the books, including the winning novel, are available in print on Amazon.ca. Juiceboxers and Oil People are also available as Kindle editions, while When We Were Ashes, How It Works Out, and I Hope This Finds You Well are available in both Kindle and audiobook formats through Audible.
Vicky Zhu Wins the Youth Short Story Category
Now in its eighth year, the Youth Short Story category celebrates authors between the ages of thirteen and seventeen who have written a short story under 3,000 words. Seventeen-year-old Vicky Zhu was chosen as the winner by the First Novel Award’s panel of judges. The prize for her winning short story, “Suzanne,” is $5,000, and her story will be published in The Walrus magazine and on thewalrus.ca later this year.
Zhu’s story was chosen from a shortlist of six short stories, which also included the following:
- Emma Chappel, “Lost Boy”
- Willow Greenfield, “Autumn Nights”
- Thivya Jeyapalan, “In The Chair”
- Victoria Nguyen, “Heed My Prayers”
- Abbie Pasowisty, “The Colour of Your Thoughts”
Each shortlisted author has been awarded $500, and their stories will appear on thewalrus.ca in the coming months.
For additional information about the finalists and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, visit amazon.ca/firstnovelaward or thewalrus.ca/afna.
