Dahil sa kanyang “Glossary of an Aswang,” nakamit ng Filipina-Canadian writer na si Louie Leyson ang prestihiyosong 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Sa 2,000 entries para sa awards, naswertehan ni Leyson, na taga-British Columbia, na masungkit ang papremyo na nagkakahalaga ng $6,000 mula sa Canada Council for the Arts at dahil dito, makadadalo rin siya sa dalawang linggong writing residency sa Artscape Gibraltar Point.
Kuwento ni Leyson sa CBC Books, ibinase niya ang “Glossary of an Aswang” sa mga karanasan ng overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sa Canada.
“Not enough people in Canada acknowledge the visible labour of Filipino migrant workers around them,” ayon sa author.
Ang “fragmented structure” ng akda ang nagsilbing winning ticket ng Fil-Canadian writer para sa naturang kumpetisyon.
“The stories within this story are painfully fragmented — much like, the writer laments, the histories, families and individual memories of the Filipino people, suppressed by colonization and dispersed across a globe dependent on Filipino domestic workers. Each fragment intimately situates the reader within the loneliness, isolation, injustice, violence and even death faced by those who leave their families in search of a better life. The writer demands that you look, and not look away. Each word perfectly chosen and irresistibly placed, Glossary for an Aswang is the kind of story that you read and immediately say, ‘This is the one,'” pahayag ng jury ng naturang writing competition.