Author Lawrence Hill, the 2008 Robert Sutherland Visitor who visited Queen's in February 2008, was one of the big winners on the weekend at the Libris Awards ceremony, held annually by the Canadian Booksellers Association as part of Toronto's BookExpo Canada. Hill was chosen for his novel The Book of Negroes. Other winners included Elizabeth Hay for Late Nights on Air and Naomi Klein for The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Hill has also been short-listed for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in the United States for the The Book of Negroes. This award is the first national award presented to published writers of African descent by the national community of Black writers.

He also received the Best Book Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Rogers Writer's Trust Fiction Prize for his book, and was on the Long list for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.