***WINNER OF THE 2024 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD***


2023 GILLER PRIZE LONGLIST


GLOBE AND MAIL'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023


APPLE BOOKS: BEST CANADIAN DEBUT of 2023


CBC'S BEST CANADIAN FICTION OF 2023


CBC'S WRITERS TO WATCH 2023


...



"ENTRANCING DEBUT"

The Globe and Mail

"funny, sad, quietly profound"

— Trillium Book Award

"impressive indeed"

— Toronto Star Review

"extraordinary"

— Aaron Schneider, author of The Supply Chain

"beautiful and devastating"

— Sarah Marie, The Miramichi Reader


"With this luminous work, Dunic reminds us that life is not an audition.
Rather, it is unfolding moment by moment in the mystical everyday."

— Trillium Book Award Judges


bio

Represented by Akin Akinwumi at Willenfield Literary Agency.

Born in Belgrade and brought to Toronto as an infant. Grew up in Scarborough and Pickering, attended the University of Toronto, graduated from Centennial College for journalism. After the first Star contest win, I received a free mentorship from the Humber School for Writers — I am grateful for that opportunity.

Also a freelance journalist. And office/client/project professional. And volunteer.

Now living in Scarborough again.

INSTAGRAM
BLUESKY

"a novel of small, graceful moments of epiphany"


— TORONTO STAR REVIEW

short fiction:


Toronto Star Short Story Contest Winner:  Youth
Humber Literary Review Emerging Writers Contest 3rd Place:  Bodies.
Toronto Star Short Story Contest Winner:  Cardinal
The Journey Prize nomination:  The Apartment

Longlisted in the CBC Short Story Prize (2023)
Longlisted in the CBC Short Story Prize (2022)
Longlisted in the CBC Short Story Prize (2020)
Longlisted in the CBC Short Story Prize (2019)
Longlisted in Room Magazine's 2023 Fiction Contest

TORONTO STAR

CONTEST JUDGES

"clean writing unfolds the perfectly paced narrative in a powerfully quiet way;
there's not a word out of place"

GRAIN MAGAZINE

FICTION EDITOR

"the images and prose are stunning”

THE TEMZ REVIEW

FOUNDER

"precisely the reason I loved the story, because it doesn't flinch"

MASIONNEUVE MAGAZINE

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

"languorous and existential"

THE OPIATE MAGAZINE

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

"simultaneously unique yet all too relatable ... timeless human feeling"

There was something pure about them, like elements. Life was long with so much sameness and repetition, life had a way of tempering you out, smoothing and polishing you down. Teenagers were pure like animals, elemental, hot and bright or dark and cold, sparking off each other, reactive and explosive. But sloppy and blind and foolish, with bravado so charming and pathetic; they were mere children who had grown too big, still smashing into things.

She remembered earlier years when she did not like teenagers, saw something cynical in that bravado. But her only child had died before birth and it had left her so fatally humbled and longing. She saw so much wounded innocence and longing in them. And pride and vanity and struggling to pull themselves out of the bewildering madness of youth — the struggle to become someone, even only just themselves.


excerpt from

youth

 


photos by DTD  ©  copyright nina dunic