Giller Prize | |
---|---|
Awarded for | English-language Canadian fiction including translations |
Country | Canada |
Presented by | Scotiabank and the Giller Prize Foundation |
First awarded | November 1994 |
Website | scotiabankgillerprize.ca |
The Giller Prize (known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize from 2005-2023 [1] ) is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries. The prize was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife Doris Giller, a former literary editor at the Toronto Star , and is awarded in November of each year along with a cash reward (then CAN$25,000) with the winner being presented by the previous year's winning author. [2]
Since its inception, the Giller Prize has been awarded to emerging and established authors from both small independent and large publishing houses in Canada.
From 1994 to 2004, the prize included a bronze figure created by artist Yehouda Chaki. [3] The current prize includes a trophy designed by Soheil Mosun. [4]
On September 22, 2005, the Giller Prize established an endorsement deal with Canadian bank Scotiabank. The total prize package for the award was increased to $50,000, with $40,000 presented to the winning author and $2,500 each for the other four shortlisted nominees. The award's official name was also changed at that time to the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
In 2006, the prize instituted a longlist for the first time, comprising no fewer than 10 and no more than 15 titles. In 2008, the prize fund was increased to $50,000 for the winning author and $5,000 for each of the authors on the shortlist. In 2014, the prize package was expanded further, to $100,000 for the winning author and $10,000 for each of the shortlisted authors. [5] In 2015, the jury was expanded from three to five people. [6]
Over the years, the Giller Prize has run different promotions to extend its recognition and support of Canadian literary talent [7] to highlight all Canadian fiction eligible for the prize in a given publishing year. For example, the Craving CanLit feature (previously called Crazy for CanLit), which highlights the initial list of all titles that are under consideration for the award's longlist and shortlist nominations, seeks to publicize Canadian literature by engaging readers and writers through social media tools. Another online initiative started in 2021, the Giller Book Club, featuring virtual author readings and interviews, got off to a bumpy start when the inaugural offering was the victim of zoombombing. [8]
Since Rabinovitch's death in 2017, the Giller Prize Foundation is now overseen by his daughter Elana Rabinovitch. [9]
Following Vincent Lam's win of the Giller Prize in 2006, Geist columnist Stephen Henighan criticized the Giller Prize for its apparent dependency for its shortlists and winners on books published by Bertelsmann AG-affiliated Canadian publishing houses, all of which are based in Toronto.
Arguing that the trend towards centralization of Canadian publishing in Toronto has led to a monopolistic control of the Giller Prize by Bertelsmann and its authors, Henighan wrote, "Year after year the vast majority of the books shortlisted for the Giller came from the triumvirate of publishers owned by the Bertelsmann Group: Knopf Canada, Doubleday Canada and Random House Canada. Like the three musketeers, this trio is in fact a quartet: Bertelsmann also owns 25 percent of McClelland & Stewart, and now manages M&S’s marketing." [10] Henighan added that all of the Giller Prize winners from 1994 to 2004, with the exception of Mordecai Richler, lived within a two-hour drive of downtown Toronto.
The article raised debate within the media and in the wider public over the credibility of the Giller Prize. [11] [12] [13] Henighan revisited that article in 2015. [14]
In 2010, there was much talk about how small presses dominated that year’s shortlist. [15] Montrealer Johanna Skibsrud won the Giller Prize that year for her novel The Sentimentalists , published by independent Gaspereau Press. The company produces books using a 1960s offset printing press and hand-bindery equipment. [16] As a result, while there was great demand for the book in the marketplace, the publisher had trouble keeping up with production. [17] In the end, they turned to Douglas & McIntyre, [18] a large West-coast publisher, to print copies of the book.
The Gaspereau situation prompted an examination within the cultural community about what makes a book and the nature of publishing and marketing books. [19] The book also became the top-selling title for Kobo eReaders, outselling even George W. Bush's memoir Decision Points . [20]
In November 2023, a month after the start of Israel's military operation in Gaza, protestors interrupted the Giller ceremony to object to Scotiabank's sponsorship of the prize, given the bank's reported $500m investment in Israel-based arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. [21] In response to their arrests, an open letter was circulated in solidarity with the protestors, which was signed by more than 2,000 people, including past winners, finalists, and jurors of the prize. [22] By March 2024, Scotiabank had divested nearly half of its stake in Elbit Systems. [23]
In July 2024, 19 authors presented a letter withdrawing their books from consideration for that year's prize and demanding the foundation pressure Scotiabank's full divestment from Elbit Systems, as well as ending the sponsorships by the Azrieli Foundation, Indigo, and Audible over their ties to Israel's occupation of Palestine. The letter was also signed by two previous winners of the prize. Dinaw Mengestu–who had was originally set to serve on the jury that year–resigned in response; the following week, the other international juror, Megha Majumdar, did as well. [24] [25] [26] In the first quarter of 2024, Scotiabank further divested from Elbit Systems by more than $100-million; this makes for a total divestment over the previous year of more than three quarters of its total stake. [27]
Covering the controversy, Marsha Lederman of The Globe and Mail noted that several other Canadian literary awards, including the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, were not being targeted despite also being sponsored by companies with financial ties to Israel, and suggested that the primary reason for focusing solely on the Giller was that founder Jack Rabinovitch had been Jewish. [28] She also noted that the Giller Foundation does not actually have any meaningful leverage to make demands of Scotiabank, and any attempt to do so would merely result in the award not only losing Scotiabank's sponsorship, but effectively rendering itself into an unsponsorable award as no other major corporation would ever agree to the award imposing political conditions on its participation either. [28] She further doubted that any of this would actually help Palestinians at all. [28]
The Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, formerly known as the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, is a Canadian literary award presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada after an annual juried competition of works submitted by publishers. Alongside the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and the Giller Prize, it is considered one of the three main awards for Canadian fiction in English. Its eligibility criteria allow for it to garland collections of short stories as well as novels; works that were originally written and published in French are also eligible for the award when they appear in English translation.
Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work. Toews is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
André Alexis is a Canadian writer who was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, grew up in Ottawa, and now lives in Toronto, Ontario. He has received numerous awards including the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, the Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Trillium Award.
The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to the best work of non-fiction by a Canadian writer.
David Bergen is a Canadian novelist. He has published eleven novels and two collections of short stories since 1993 and is currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His 2005 novel The Time in Between won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and he was a finalist again in 2010 and 2020, making the long list in 2008.
Billie Livingston is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Livingston grew up in Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia. She lives in Vancouver.
Jack Rabinovitch OC, O.Ont was a Canadian philanthropist best known for founding the Giller Prize which is named after his late wife, Doris Giller, who was a literary columnist for the Toronto Star.
Heather O'Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, who published her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel was subsequently selected for the 2007 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by singer-songwriter John K. Samson. Lullabies won the competition. The book also won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for eight other major awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Governor General's Award and was longlisted for International Dublin Literary Award.
David John Chariandy is a Canadian writer and academic, presently working as a Professor of English literature at the University of Toronto. His 2017 novel Brother won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and Toronto Book Award.
Kaie Kellough is a Canadian poet and novelist. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, raised in Calgary, Alberta, and in 1998 moved to Montreal, Quebec, where he lives.
Alexander MacLeod is a Canadian writer and professor of English, Creative Writing and Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His debut short story collection Light Lifting was a shortlisted nominee for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. It won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award in the 2011 Atlantic Book Awards. In 2019, he won an O. Henry Award for his short story, "Lagomorph", which was first published in Granta.
Johanna Shively Skibsrud is a Canadian writer, whose debut novel The Sentimentalists won the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
The Sentimentalists is a novel by Canadian writer Johanna Skibsrud that was the winner of the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Charles Scott Richardson is a Canadian novelist and book designer, whose novel The End of the Alphabet won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, Canada & the Caribbean.
Patrick deWitt is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. Born on Vancouver Island, deWitt lives in Portland, Oregon, and has acquired American citizenship. As of 2023, he has written five novels: Ablutions (2009), The Sisters Brothers (2011), Undermajordomo Minor (2015), French Exit (2018) and The Librarianist (2023).
Esi Edugyan is a Canadian novelist. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels Half-Blood Blues (2011) and Washington Black (2018).
Michael Christie is a Canadian writer, whose debut story collection The Beggar's Garden was a longlisted nominee for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize and a shortlisted nominee for the 2011 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.
Conor Kerr is a Canadian writer from Edmonton, Alberta. His debut novel Avenue of Champions, published in 2021, was the winner of the ReLit Award for Fiction in 2022, and was shortlisted for the 2022 Amazon.ca First Novel Award and longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize. Named for the ceremonial name of 118 Avenue in Edmonton as the "Avenue of Champions" due to the location of the Northlands Coliseum, the novel focuses on the coming of age of a young Métis man.
Pure Colour is a novel by Canadian author Sheila Heti. Published by Knopf Canada, the book won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language fiction.