Desmond
Cole
Desmond Cole is a journalist, radio host, and activist. His debut book, The Skin We’re In, won the Toronto Book Award and was a finalist for the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. It was also named a best book of 2020 by The Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, CBC, Quill & Quire, and Indigo. Cole’s writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, The Walrus, and the Ottawa Citizen, among others. He lives in Toronto.
Writers & Books
Award History
2021 - Finalist
Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
for The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and PowerJury Citation
“Desmond Cole’s The Skin We're In is an uncompromising yet utterly compelling dissection of a long neglected but fundamental aspect of Canadian life: anti-Black racism. This is a story of confrontation and resistance, but also of deep listening and bearing witness. Written with power and verve, Cole’s sharp, urgent, and lyrical prose reveals an author with a capacious intellect, moral clarity, and unwavering commitment to justice. Cole challenges his home and native land to dispense with magical thinking and reckon with uncomfortable truths.” — 2021 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize Jury (Peter Dauvergne, Adrian Harewood, and Heather Scoffield)Works Recognized by WT