Scotiabank Giller Prize
Scotiabank Giller Prize | |
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Awarded for | English-language Canadian fiction including translations |
Country | Canada |
Presented by | Scotiabank and Jack Rabinovitch |
First awarded | 1994 |
Official website | http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/ |
The Scotiabank Giller Prize, or Giller Prize, 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.[1] The prize was established as the Giller Prize 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).
On September 22, 2005, the Giller Prize established an endorsement deal with Scotiabank, a major Canadian bank. 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.[2] In 2015, the jury was expanded from three to five people.[3]
In 2011, the Giller Prize extended its recognition and support of Canadian literary talent [4] to highlight all Canadian fiction eligible for the prize in a given publishing year. The Crazy for CanLit feature [5] showcases and encourages readers to celebrate all of the published books in different ways (in 2014 and 2015, with themed reading lists), often in conjunction with prizes and incentives.
Over the years, the Scotiabank Giller Prize has been awarded to emerging and established authors from both small independent and large publishing houses in Canada.
Cultural debate
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."[6] 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.[7][8][9] Henighan revisited that article in 2015.[10]
In 2010, there was much talk about how small presses dominated that year’s shortlist.[11] 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.[12] As a result, while there was great demand for the book in the marketplace, the publisher had trouble keeping up with production.[13] In the end, they turned to Douglas & McIntyre,[14] 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.[15] The book also became the top-selling title for Kobo eReaders, outselling even George W. Bush's memoir Decision Points.[16]
Nominees and winners
Longlists
2006
In 2006, the Giller Prize publicized its preliminary longlist for the first time.
- David Adams Richards, The Friends of Meager Fortune
- Caroline Adderson, Pleased to Meet You
- Todd Babiak, The Garneau Block
- Randy Boyagoda, Governor of the Northern Province
- Douglas Coupland, jPod
- Alan Cumyn, The Famished Lover
- Rawi Hage, De Niro's Game
- Kenneth J. Harvey, Inside
- Wayne Johnston, The Custodian of Paradise
- Vincent Lam, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
- Annette Lapointe, Stolen
- Pascale Quiviger, The Perfect Circle
- Gaétan Soucy, The Immaculate Conception
- Russell Wangersky, The Hour of Bad Decisions
- Carol Windley, Home Schooling
2007
- David Chariandy, Soucouyant
- Sharon English, Zero Gravity
- Barbara Gowdy, Helpless
- Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air
- Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes
- Paulette Jiles, Stormy Weather
- D. R. MacDonald, Lauchlin of the Bad Heart
- Claire Mulligan, The Reckoning of Boston Jim
- Mary Novik, Conceit
- Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero
- Daniel Poliquin, A Secret Between Us (translated by Donald Winkler)
- M. G. Vassanji, The Assassin's Song
- Michael Winter, The Architects Are Here
- Richard B. Wright, October
- Alissa York, Effigy
2008
- David Adams Richards, The Lost Highway
- David Bergen, The Retreat
- Joseph Boyden, Through Black Spruce
- Austin Clarke, More
- Anthony De Sa, Barnacle Love
- Emma Donoghue, The Sealed Letter
- Marina Endicott, Good to a Fault
- Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo
- Rawi Hage, Cockroach
- Kenneth J. Harvey, Blackstrap Hawco
- Patrick Lane, Red Dog, Red Dog
- Pasha Malla, The Withdrawal Method
- Paul Quarrington, The Ravine
- Nino Ricci, The Origin of Species
- Mary Swan, The Boys in the Trees
2009
- Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood
- Martha Baillie, The Incident Report
- Kim Echlin, The Disappeared
- Claire Holden Rothman, The Heart Specialist
- Paulette Jiles, The Color of Lightning
- Jeanette Lynes, The Factory Voice
- Annabel Lyon, The Golden Mean
- Linden MacIntyre, The Bishop's Man
- Colin McAdam, Fall
- Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault
- Shani Mootoo, Valmiki’s Daughter
- Kate Pullinger, The Mistress of Nothing
2010
- David Bergen, The Matter With Morris
- Douglas Coupland, Player One
- Michael Helm, Cities of Refuge
- Alexander MacLeod, Light Lifting
- Avner Mandelman, The Debba
- Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists
- Sarah Selecky, This Cake is for the Party
- Johanna Skibsrud, The Sentimentalists
- Cordelia Strube, Lemon
- Joan Thomas, Curiosity
- Jane Urquhart, Sanctuary Line
- Dianne Warren, Cool Water
- Kathleen Winter, Annabel
2011
In 2011, the Giller Prize committee incorporated a Readers' Choice process into its longlist for the first time, allowing members of the general public to nominate and make the case for books of their own choosing, from which the winning book would be included in the long list. The Readers' Choice selection was Myrna Dey's novel Extensions.[25]
- David Bezmozgis, The Free World
- Clark Blaise, The Meagre Tarmac
- Michael Christie, The Beggar's Garden
- Lynn Coady, The Antagonist
- Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers
- Myrna Dey, Extensions
- Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues
- Marina Endicott, The Little Shadows
- Zsuzsi Gartner, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives
- Genni Gunn, Solitaria
- Pauline Holdstock, Into the Heart of the Country
- Wayne Johnston, A World Elsewhere
- Dany Laferrière, The Return (translation by David Homel)
- Suzette Mayr, Monoceros
- Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table
- Guy Vanderhaeghe, A Good Man
- Alexi Zentner, Touch
2012
- Marjorie Celona, Y
- Lauren B. Davis, Our Daily Bread
- Cary Fagan, My Life Among the Apes
- Will Ferguson, 419
- Robert Hough, Dr. Brinkley's Tower
- Billie Livingston, One Good Hustle
- Annabel Lyon, The Sweet Girl
- Alix Ohlin, Inside
- Katrina Onstad, Everybody Has Everything
- C.S. Richardson, The Emperor of Paris
- Nancy Richler, The Impostor Bride
- Kim Thúy, Ru
- Russell Wangersky, Whirl Away
2013
- Dennis Bock, Going Home Again
- Joseph Boyden, The Orenda
- Lynn Coady, Hellgoing
- Craig Davidson, Cataract City
- Elisabeth de Mariaffi, How to Get Along With Women
- David Gilmour, Extraordinary
- Wayne Grady, Emancipation Day
- Louis Hamelin, October 1970 (translation by Wayne Grady)
- Wayne Johnston, The Son of a Certain Woman
- Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs
- Lisa Moore, Caught
- Dan Vyleta, The Crooked Maid
- Michael Winter, Minister Without Portfolio
2014
- Arjun Basu, Waiting for the Man
- David Bezmozgis, The Betrayers
- Rivka Galchen, American Innovations
- Frances Itani, Tell
- Jennifer LoveGrove, Watch How We Walk
- Sean Michaels, Us Conductors
- Shani Mootoo, Moving Forwards Sideways Like a Crab
- Heather O'Neill, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night
- Kathy Page, Paradise and Elsewhere
- Claire Holden Rothman, My October
- Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows
- Padma Viswanathan, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao
2015
- André Alexis, Fifteen Dogs
- Samuel Archibald, Arvida (translated by Donald Winkler)
- Michael Christie, If I Fall, If I Die
- Rachel Cusk, Outline
- Patrick deWitt, Undermajordomo Minor
- Marina Endicott, Close to Hugh
- Connie Gault, A Beauty
- Alix Hawley, All True Not a Lie in It
- Clifford Jackman, The Winter Family
- Heather O'Neill, Daydreams of Angels
- Anakana Schofield, Martin John
- Russell Smith, Confidence
2016
- Mona Awad, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
- Gary Barwin, Yiddish for Pirates
- Andrew Battershill, Pillow
- David Bergen, Stranger
- Emma Donoghue, The Wonder
- Catherine Leroux, The Party Wall (translated by Lazer Lederhendler)
- Kathy Page, The Two of Us
- Susan Perly, Death Valley
- Kerry Lee Powell, Willem De Kooning's Paintbrush
- Steven Price, By Gaslight
- Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing
- Zoe Whittall, The Best Kind of People
References
- ↑ The Scotiabank Giller Prize: Submissions.
- ↑ "Giller Prize money doubles to $140,000". Toronto Star, September 16, 2014.
- ↑ "Introducing the Five-Member Jury Panel for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize". Scotiabank Giller Prize, January 14, 2015.
- ↑ The Scotiabank Giller Prize: Prize History
- ↑ The Scotiabank Giller Prize: Crazy for CanLit
- ↑ Stephen Henighan (2006). "Kingmakers". Geist. Retrieved 2008-04-26.
- ↑ Shinan Govani (2007-02-28). "An anti-Giller gadfly in Guelph". National Post. Retrieved 2008-04-26.
- ↑ Bryony Lewicki (2007-01-23). "Secrets of the Canadian literary cabal". Quillblog. Quill & Quire. Retrieved 2008-04-26.
- ↑ Ron Nurwisah (2007-01-23). "Are The Gillers Rigged?". Torontoist. Retrieved 2008-04-26.
- ↑ Stephen Henighan (2015-11-06). "How a Giller Prize critic got invited to the party". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
- ↑ James Adams (2010-10-05). "The Giller Prize: Could this be the year of the small press?". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2010-10-05.
- ↑ Gaspereau Press Background
- ↑ John Barber (2010-11-10). "Author's angst grows over unavailability of Giller winner". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2010-11-16.
- ↑ Mark Medley (2010-11-15). "Gaspereau Press teams up with Douglas & McIntyre for The Sentimentalists". National Post. Retrieved 2010-11-15.
- ↑ Globe Editorial (2010-11-10). "Giller is enough to drive you to Gasperation". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
- ↑ Nick Patch (2010-11-12). "Scarcity of Giller-winning 'Sentimentalists' a boon to eBook sales". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
- ↑ The Great Unknowns: CBC Arts Online analyzes the literary dash for the Giller cash. cbc.ca, October 3, 2006.
- ↑ "Rachman, Bergen, Urquhart and Coupland on Giller long list". The Globe and Mail, September 20, 2010.
- ↑ "DeWitt and Edugyan add Giller nods to Booker nominations". The Globe and Mail, October 4, 2011.
- ↑ "Scotiabank Giller Prize short list announced". Toronto Star, October 1, 2012.
- ↑ "Will Ferguson takes Giller Prize for novel 419". Toronto Star, October 30, 2012.
- ↑ "Scotiabank Giller Prize announces 2013 longlist nominees". Toronto Star, September 16, 2013.
- ↑ "Jury for the 2014 Giller Prize unveiled". National Post, February 19, 2014.
- ↑ "Sean Michaels awarded Giller Prize for his book ‘Us Conductors’". The Globe and Mail, November 10, 2014.
- ↑ "DeWitt, Edugyan, Ondaatje and Vanderhaege among 17 on Giller long list". The Globe and Mail, September 6, 2011.