Kate Beaton’s bestselling Canada Reads–winning 2022 graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands continues to rack up awards and international acclaim: the book was announced as the winner of the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature on Nov. 27.

The annual Swiss literary prize – created in the memory of Jan Michalski, the co-founder of the Paris-based book publisher Libella – recognizes an outstanding work of world literature in any literary genre, fiction or nonfiction, published in any language.

The winner receives a prize of 50,000 Swiss francs (almost $80,000 Canadian) and a work of art specially chosen for them.

The jury called Ducks, published by Drawn & Quarterly, a “profoundly moving masterpiece thanks to the courage it embodies.”

Beaton is the first Canadian to win the prize since its inception in 2010. Suzanne Simard was a finalist in 2023 for Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest. Alberto Manguel and Maxime Raymond Bock have been longlisted for the prize.

Previous winners include Olga Tokarczuk, Karina Sainz Borgo, and Mia Couto.

The Jan Michalski Prize only takes submissions from the jurors themselves, two per year from their recent international readings. The international jury of this year’s prize was composed of publisher Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, and authors Jonathan Coe (who proposed Ducks), Kapka Kassabova, Andrea Marcolongo, Valérie Mréjen, Gonçalo M. Tavares, and Sjón.