Book on 1971 genocide wins Cundill Prize

A book about the United States' complicity in the genocide of Bangladeshis in the early 1970s has won the $75,000 (US) Cundill Prize for historical literature.

The announcement was made at a gala event at Toronto's Shangri-La Hotel on Thursday evening.

The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (Knopf) by Gary J Bass, looks at Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon's secret support of Pakistan in 1971, when that country was engaged in a genocidal war in Bangladesh.

“I was completely surprised,” Bass said of his win Thursday night. “I think it's a wonderful opportunity to call attention to the terrible events in Bangladesh in 1971.

“It's always hard for books to find an audience these days. And this is a book about a very dark subject, about these terrible mass atrocities in Bangladesh in 1971, where the United States is playing a terrible role standing behind the Pakistani army as these atrocities are being carried out,” he told the Toronto Star. “Hopefully the prize calls attention to the story and can bring it to a wider audience.”

Bass, who grew up in Toronto, feels it “would be good for people to remember this important chapter of the Cold War. Every reader will judge Nixon's and Kissinger's actions in their own way, and it's not up to me to dictate what they should take away from it, but at least they should be aware of the core facts and then we can have that debate properly.”

He was the winner from a short list of three finalists that also included Richard Overy for The Bombing War: Europe 1939-45 (Allen Lane) and David Van Reybrouck forCongo: The Epic History of a People (ECCO).

The prize is the largest international award for a non-fiction book. In addition, the two runners-up receive $10,000 (US) each. The prize is awarded every year to a book the jury determines has had “a profound literary, social and academic impact in the area of history.

The jury selected the book from 175 submissions received from 75 publishers from around the world. This year's Cundill jury included David Frum, author and a senior editor for The Atlantic; Marla R Miller, professor and director of the public history program at the University of Massachusetts; Stuart Schwartz, history professor at Yale University and winner of the inaugural Cundill Prize; Thomas HB Symons, founding president and professor emeritus at Trent University; and Althia Raj, Ottawa bureau chief for Huffington Post Canada.

Bass's book also won the $15,000 Lionel Gelber Prize earlier this year; that prize is handed out to the world's best English book on foreign policy. That award was founded by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber in 1989.

The Cundill Prize is administered by McGill University. It was established in 2008 by renowned mutual fund investor and McGill alumnus F Peter Cundill. He died in 2011.