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Renowned authors Canisia Lubrin and Dionne Brand have each received one of the world’s most sought-after literary awards: .

Awarded by Yale University to eight writers annually, the prize gives US$165,000 (more than C$206,000) to each author in recognition of their extraordinary literary achievements. While both Brand and Lubrin write in many forms, Brand was recognized for fiction and Lubrin for poetry.

The author of the critically acclaimed Voodoo Hypothesis  Lubrin is an instructor at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies and was also recently named poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart, succeeding Brand in the role. Describing her work, the judges said: “Bursting beyond the confines of legibility and the individual, Canisia Lubrin summons up oceans, languages, and the self, the other, and the first-person plural, into a generous baroque project of anti-colonial plenitude.”

“It is impossible to express what this extraordinary encouragement means, what being in such company during such a catastrophic time, will make possible,” Lubrin said in a statement.

Alumna and honorary degree recipient Brand is a novelist, essayist and Toronto’s former poet laureate, whose most recent book is called Theory.

“Funny, wild, and completely lacking in pretension, Theory takes huge formal risks, reimagining the novel of ideas for our own moment, challenging and enchanting the reader at the same time,” the judges said.

“This is an astonishing surprise,” Brand said in a statement. “It will take me weeks, maybe months to find the best words to describe my amazement. For now let me say, wondrous.”