Congratulations to Geist contributor Anakana Schofield, who has been announced the winner of the 2012 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.

Schofield's novel, Malarky, was one of five finalists chosen by Stuart Woods, editor of Quill & Quire.

Established in 1976, the First Novel Award recognizes the outstanding achievements of first-time Canadian novelists. Previous winners include David Bezmozgis's The Free World, Eleanor Catton's The Rehearsal and Jessica Grant's Come, Thou Tortoise. The First Novel Award is notable for bringing exposure to many highly regarded Canadian novelists such as Michael Ondaatje, Joy Kogawa and André Alexis.

This year's awards ceremony took place at The Four Seasons hotel in Toronto on April 24.

An excerpt of Malarky previously appeared in Geist 85.

More information can be found here.