The George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature is a literary award given to a British Columbian author "who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a new book published in the preceding calendar year."^[1] The prize was created in 2004 by Alan Twigg, publisher of BC Book World, along with John Lent of Okanagan College^[2] and Ken Smedley, then working for the George Ryga Centre Society.^[3] In 2014 Alan Twigg took over responsibility for the award after the sale of Ryga House. Originally the prize included a sculpture/plaque by sculptor, Reg Kienast, entitled The Censor's Golden Rope. Now it includes a cash award of $2,500.

Nominees and winners

Year	Winner	Finalists
2004 Judge: Craig McLuckie	Maggie De Vries, Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister	Marie Clements, Burning Vision Matt Hern, Field Day: Getting Society Out of School Patricia E. Roy, The Oriental Question: Consolidating a White Man's Province, 1914-41
2005 Judge: Ross Tyner	Robert Hunter, The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An Environmental Odyssey	Stephen Hume and Alexandra Morton, A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming Roy Miki, Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice
2006 Judge: Myrna Kotash	Leslie A. Robertson and Dara Culhane, In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver	Jean Barman, Stanley Park's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point Michael Kluckner, Vanishing British Columbia
2007 Judge: Sharon Josephson	Harold Rhenisch, The Wolves at Evelyn: Journeys Through a Dark Century	Daniel Francis, Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver's Sex Trade Lynne Van Luven, Nobody's Mother: Life Without Kids
2008 Judge: Ivan Townshend	Leilah Nadir, The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family	Gary Geddes, Falsework Ernest Hekkanen, Of a Fire Beyond the Hills
2009 Judge: Ivan Townshend	Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo	Brian Dedora, A Slice of Voice at the Edge of Hearing JoAnn Dionne, Little Emperors: A Year with the Future of China Manjit Virk, Reena: A Father's Story
2010 Judge: Greg Simison	Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori Culbert, A Thousand Dreams: Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and the Fight for Its Future	Elizabeth Bachinsky, God of Missed Connections Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes
2011 Judge: Andrew Steeves	Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song	Gabor Gasztonyi, A Room in the City: Photographs of Gabor Gasztonyi Sylvia Olsen, Working with Wool: A Coast Salish Legacy and the Cowichan Sweater Benjamin Perrin, Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking John Vaillant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
2012	No award presented
2013 Judge: Angie Abdou	Joel Bakan, Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children	Michael Christie, The Beggar's Garden Howard White, A Hard Man to Beat: The Story of Bill White, Labour Leader, Historian, Shipyard Worker, Raconteur
2014 Judge: Sean Johnston	Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School	Adrienne Fitzpatrick, The Earth Remembers Everything Gillian Wigmore, Dirt of Ages
2015 Jury: George Brandak, Anne Chudyk, Beverly Cramp	Shelley Wright, Our Ice is Vanishing / Sikuvat Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change	Michael Buckley, Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia Ann Rogers and John Hill, Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security
2016 Jury: Trevor Carolan, Jane Curry, George Johnson	Andrew MacLeod, A Better Place on Earth: The Search for Fairness in Super Unequal British Columbia''	David R. Boyd, The Optimistic Environmentalist: Progressing Toward a Greener Future Larry Gambone, No Regrets Chris and Josh Hergesheimer, The Flour Peddlar Carrie Saxifrage, The Big Swim: Coming Ashore in a World Adrift David Suzuki, Letters to My Grandchildren
2017 Jury: Trevor Carolan, Jane Curry, Beverley Cramp	Wade Davis, Wade Davis: Photographs	Stephen Collis, Once in Blockadia Ivan Coyote, Tomboy Survival Guide Marc Edge, The News We Deserve: The Transformation of Canada's Media Landscape James Hoggan with Grania Litwin, I'm Right and You're an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up Eric Jamieson, The Native Voice: The Story of How Maisie Hurley and Canada's First Aboriginal Newspaper Changed a Nation Alan Livingstone MacLeod, Remembered in Bronze and Stone: Canada's Great War Memorial Statuary Christopher Pollon and Ben Nelms, The Peace in Peril: The Real Cost of the Site C Dam Anton Scamvougeras, Dysconnected: Humans Isolated by their Personal Technology Ron Smith, The Defiant Mind: Living Inside a Stroke
2018	Travis Lupick, Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction''	Gary Geddes, Medicine Unbundled: A Journey through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care David Suzuki and Ian Hanington, Just Cool It! The Climate Crisis and What We Can Do
2019[4]	Rod Mickleburgh, On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement''
2020[4]	Diane Pinch, Passion & Persistence: Fifty Years of the Sierra Club in British Columbia''	The Graphic History Collective and David Lester, 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg Strike Wendy Wickwire, At the Bridge: James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging Ross Hoffman with Alfred Joseph, Song of the Earth: The Life of Alfred Joseph Philip Huynh, The Forbidden Purple City
2021[4]	Geoff Mynett, Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician''	Jean Barman, On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of B.C. Emma Hansen, Still: Love, Loss, and Motherhood Benjamin Perrin, Overdose: Heartbreak and Hope in Canada's Opioid Crisis Maureen Webb, Coding Democracy: How Hackers are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism
2022[4]	Alexandra Morton, Not On My Watch: How a Renegade Whale Biologist Took on Governments and Industry to Save Wild Salmon''	Darrel J. McLeod, Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest David Spaner, Solidarity: Canada's Unknown Revolution of 1983 Jody Wilson-Raybould, “Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power

References