October 16, 2024 - Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio’s debut novel Reuniting with Strangers is one of only five finalists in this year’s Toronto Book Awards.
Reuniting with Strangers weaves through stories of Filipino caregivers who left their families behind in the hopes of reuniting with them in Canada. A central character, a child of a Filipina caregiver, binds the various experiences that are both sad and funny but nevertheless provide an image of the stark realities families who hope to reunite must face.
Austria-Bonifacio is a community worker and has worked with school boards in Ontario as a settlement worker, public speaker, and researcher. She founded Filipino Talks, a program that builds bridges between educators and Filipino families.
Reuniting with Strangers was also named one of CBC’s Best Books of 2023 and won silver in Multicultural Fiction at the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
Austria-Bonifacio’s short stories can be found in Geist, Akdang Dayo, LooseLeaf Literary Magazine and TAYO Literary Magazine. In 2017, she won an emerging author’s award from the Ontario Book Publishers Organization for an excerpt titled “Belonging at Bathurst and Wilson.” She was shortlisted for Room’s 2019 Short Forms contest, and published in Changing the Face of Canadian Literature: A Diverse Canadian Anthology by Guernica Editions.
Joining Reuniting with Strangers on the shortlist are The Roosting Box by Kristen Den Hartog, The Rasmussen Papers by Connie Gault, The Suicide Magnet by Paul McLaughlin and I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop.
The 2024 Toronto Book Awards will be held on November 7 at the Toronto Reference Library on Yonge St. Established by Toronto City Council in 1974, the awards honour works of literary merit that are inspired by the city and its residents.
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