Winnipeg author and historian Gerald Friesen has won the 2025 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize for his biography The Honourable John Norquay: Indigenous Premier, Canadian Statesman.
Published by University of Manitoba Press in April 2024, Friesen’s book chronicles the life of Manitoba’s first Indigenous premier, who served from 1879-88, and the impact he had on the province at a pivotal time of growth. Friesen spent 10 years pulling together the 600-plus page book — Norquay left many documents from his 19 years in office, but little had been known about the rest of his life, which saw him die suddenly in 1889 at age 48.
The J.W. Dafoe Book Prize is named after former Manitoba Free Press/Winnipeg Free Press editor John Wesley Dafoe, and is awarded to the best book on Canada, Canadians, and/or Canada’s place in the world published in the previous calendar year. The award is worth $12,000 and will be presented to Friesen at an event later this fall.
The Honourable John Norquay