Congratulations to the Winner of the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction,
Canisia Lubrin for Code Noir.
“Code Noir contains multitudes. Its characters inhabit multi-layered landscapes of the past, present and future, confronting suffering, communion and metamorphosis. Canisia Lubrin’s prose is polyphonic; the stories invite you to immerse yourself in both the real and the speculative, in the intimate and in sweeping moments of history. Riffing on the Napoleonic decree, Lubrin retunes the legacies of slavery, colonialism and violence. This is a virtuoso collection that breaks new ground in short fiction.”
Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin (Knopf Canada/Soft Skull Press)
Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction is that rare work of art—a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple: it departs from the infamous real-life “Code Noir,” a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.
Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction, this inventive, shape-shifting braid of stories exists far beyond the enclosures of official decrees. This is a timely, daring, virtuosic book by a young literary star. The stories are accompanied by black-and-white drawings—one at the start of each fiction—by acclaimed visual artist Torkwase Dyson.
About Canisia Lubrin
Canisia Lubrin’s books include Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst. Lubrin’s work has been recognized with the Griffin Poetry Prize, OCM Bocas Prize, the Writers’ Trust of Canada Rising Stars award, and others. In 2021, Lubrin received a Windham-Campbell prize for poetry, and The Globe and Mail named her Poet of the Year. Code Noir, her debut fiction, won The 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. The stories in Code Noir are accompanied by black-and-white drawings by acclaimed visual artist Torkwase Dyson. Born in St. Lucia, Lubrin lives in Whitby, Ontario, and coordinates the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Guelph.