ST. JOHN'S, NL, Sept. 17,
2018 /CNW/ - The Scotiabank Giller Prize is pleased to announce its
longlist for this year's award. The 2017 Prize winner, Michael Redhill, announced the list during a
ceremony at The Rooms in St. John's,
NL. The 12 titles were chosen from a field of 104 books
submitted by publishers all across Canada.
This year the Prize celebrates its 25th
anniversary.
The longlist for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize is:
- Paige Cooper for her
story collection Zolitude, published by A John Metcalf Book,
an imprint of Biblioasis
- Patrick DeWitt for his
novel French Exit, published by House of Anansi Press
- Eric Dupont for his novel
Songs for the Cold of Heart, translated by Peter McCambridge, published by QC Fiction, an
imprint of Baraka Books
- Esi Edugyan for her novel Washington Black,
published by Patrick Crean Editions, an imprint of HarperCollins
Canada
- Rawi Hage for his novel
Beirut Hellfire Society, published by Knopf Canada
- Sheila Heti for her novel
Motherhood, published by Knopf Canada
- Emma Hooper for her novel
Our Homesick Songs, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada
- Thea Lim for her novel
An Ocean of Minutes, published by Viking Canada
- Lisa Moore for her story
collection Something for Everyone, published by Astoria, an
imprint of House of Anansi Press
- Tanya Tagaq for her novel Split Tooth, published
by Viking Canada
- Kim Thúy for her novel Vi, translated by
Sheila Fischman, published by Random
House Canada
- Joshua Whitehead for his
novel Jonny Appleseed,
published by Arsenal Pulp Press
The longlist was selected by an esteemed five-member jury
panel: Canadian writer and journalist Kamal Al-Solaylee (Jury Chair), playwright
and Vice President of advancement for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)
Maxine Bailey, American
writer John Freeman, English
novelist Philip Hensher, and
Canadian author Heather
O'Neill.
Of the longlist, the jury wrote:
"We the jury devoted many, many delightful and arduous months
of our lives coming up with this longlist. Our sole criteria going
into this process was literary excellence. We were looking for
books that were written in elevated, idiosyncratic, original prose
that exhibited an exquisite command of the art of language, and
unparalleled mastery of structure and storytelling. We argued
viciously over books, expounding on their merits. But when the
battle was over, what remained left us in awe. This list reflects
the landscape of the current Canadian imagination: diverse, bold,
edgy, exciting, reflective, aware, angry and joyous. Leave it to
our literature to speak out beautifully from the far-flung edges of
this huge mysterious land, and sing about the erased, the
immigrants, the oppressed, the survivors, the entitled. It also
reflects the myriad genres that Canadian writers are working in:
auto-fiction, science-fiction, epic family sagas, historical
novels, coming of age dramas, short-stories, satire. These are
stories about and beyond Canada, a list so exciting,
exhibiting such pure excellence, it stands up to any list in the
world, and it is great, great fun to read."
This year's shortlist will be announced at a press event to be
held at the Scotiabank Centre at Scotia Plaza in Toronto on Monday,
October 1, at 11 a.m. ET.
(Doors open at 10:30 a.m.)
Quotes
"I am just delighted for these twelve finalists. They have
written extraordinary books that deserve to be read, and read
widely. After 25 years, the Prize continues to do what it set out
to do all those years ago – spotlight and promote Canadian writers
and their books to Canada and the world. We hope to continue doing
this work for another 25 years.We could not have done any of this
without our most valued partner, Scotiabank. We thank them for
their ongoing support and dedication to Canadian literature."
-Elana
Rabinovitch, Executive Director, Scotiabank Giller
Prize
"This is an exciting year for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, as we
join book lovers in celebrating the 25th anniversary of
this important literary award. Scotiabank is proud to support
Canada's talented fiction writers through the Prize. We
congratulate the longlisted authors for being recognized for their
inspiring works and look forward to celebrating the finalists and
winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize in November."
- John
Doig, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer,
Scotiabank
Between the Pages: An Evening with the Scotiabank Giller
Prize Finalists will take you inside the minds and creative
lives of the writers on the 2018 shortlist. All venues are
wheelchair accessible and an American Sign Language (ASL)
interpreter will be present.
The Scotiabank Giller Prize is delighted to present the Between
the Pages series of readings featuring this year's shortlisted
authors, taking place in:
- Calgary – October 11;
- Vancouver –
October 15;
- Halifax – October 25;
- Ottawa – October 30;
- Toronto – November 5;
- New York City –
November 7; and,
- London, U.K. –
November 15.
For more information, please visit:
www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/news-events/events-and-important-dates/
The 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize will air on Monday,
November 19, on CBC at 8 p.m.
(ET) CBC Radio One at 8 p.m.
(ET) and will be livestreamed at CBCBooks.ca.
Audible, the world's largest creator and distributor of
audiobooks, is committed to supporting talented Canadian authors
and narrators and is proud to be the exclusive audiobook sponsor of
the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
About the Prize
The Giller Prize, founded by Jack
Rabinovitch in 1994, highlights the very best in Canadian
fiction year after year. In 2005, the prize teamed up with
Scotiabank who increased the winnings 4-fold. The Scotiabank Giller
Prize now awards $100,000 annually to
the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection
published in English, and $10,000 to
each of the finalists. The award is named in honour of the late
literary journalist Doris Giller by
her husband Toronto businessman Jack
Rabinovitch, who passed away in August 2017.
About Scotiabank
Scotiabank is Canada's international bank and a
leading financial services provider in the Americas. We are
dedicated to helping our 25 million customers become better off
through a broad range of advice, products and services, including
personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private
banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets.
With a team of more than 96,000 employees and assets of $947
billion (as at July 31, 2018), Scotiabank trades on
the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New York Stock
Exchange (NYSE: BNS). For more information, please
visit www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter
@Scotiabankviews.
About CBC/Radio-Canada
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster.
Through our mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain, we play a
central role in strengthening Canadian culture. As Canada's trusted
news source, we offer a uniquely Canadian perspective on news,
current affairs and world affairs. Our distinctively homegrown
entertainment programming draws audiences from across the country.
Deeply rooted in communities, CBC/Radio-Canada offers diverse
content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages. We are
leading the transformation to meet the needs of Canadians in a
digital world.
About Audible, Inc.
Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:
AMZN), is the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio
content, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich their
lives every day. Audible was created to unleash the emotive music
in language and the habituating power and utility of verbal
expression. Audible content includes more than 375,000 audio
programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters,
entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business
information providers.
SOURCE Scotiabank