TORONTO, Sept. 8, 2021 /CNW/ - Elana Rabinovitch,
Executive Director of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, is pleased to
share the Prize's 2021 longlist. The Prize's 2020 winner,
Souvankham Thammavongsa, announced the list today on
www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/live. It was also announced via the
Scotiabank Giller Prize's YouTube and Facebook page.
The 12 titles were chosen from a field of 132 books submitted by
publishers from across Canada. This year, the Prize celebrates its
28th anniversary.
The longlist for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize includes:
- Cedar Bowers for her novel Astra, published by
McClelland & Stewart
- Omar El Akkad for his
novel, What Strange Paradise, published by McClelland &
Stewart
- Angelique Lalonde for her
story collection, Glorious Frazzled Beings, published by House of
Anansi
- Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onubia for her novel The Son of The
House, published by Dundurn Press
- Casey Plett for her story
collection, A Dream of a Woman, published by Arsenal Pulp
Press
- Rachel Rose for her story
collection The Octopus Has Three Hearts, published by Douglas &
McIntyre
- Linda Rui Feng for her
novel Swimming Back to Trout
River, published by Simon & Schuster
- Jordan Tannahill for his
novel The Listeners, published by HarperCollins Canada
- Kim Thuy for her novel,
Em, published by Random House Canada
- Miriam Toews for her
novel Fight Night, published by Knopf Canada
- Katherena Vermette for
her novel The Strangers, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada
- Aimee Wall for her novel
We, Jane, published by Book*hug Press
The longlist was selected by an esteemed panel of five judges:
Canadian authors Zalika Reid
Benta (Jury Chair), Megan
Gail Coles, Joshua
Whitehead, Malaysian novelist Tash Aw and American author Joshua Ferris.
Of the longlist, the jury wrote:
In a year of logistical challenges and the continued relevance
of virtual meeting platforms, the jury of the 2021 Scotiabank
Giller Prize has emerged from many hours of private reading and
many rounds of lively debate with a longlist of twelve titles. This
extraordinary dozen showcases an ecstatic diversity of voices and
styles, of narrative deployment and moral urgency, of formal
innovation and old-fashioned storytelling pleasure. There is
something for everyone on this list, and within each of these books
there is to be found beauty, honest reckoning, human compassion,
and the irrefutable mark of the sublime. It was the jury's great
honour to delight in the manifold achievements of these books, and
with their announcement we leave this debate settled for another
year: Canada's literature is as vibrant and expansive as ever.
Quotes
"The jury has selected a dazzling group of writers to represent
the very best in Canadian fiction for 2021. There's no denying the
enormous impact of women's writing on the literary scene this year.
I'm grateful to each jury member for their razor-sharp reading and
delighted for this year's longlisted writers."
-
Elana Rabinovitch, Executive
Director, Scotiabank Giller Prize
"The last year has continued to be one of uncertainty for Canada
and for Canadians and many have found comfort between the pages of
a good book. Scotiabank proudly congratulates the 12 longlisted
authors of the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize as they have provided
readers with comfort, escape and adventure during these challenging
times."
-John Doig, Executive Vice
President, Retail Distribution, Scotiabank
The Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist will be announced
on Tuesday, October 5, at
11 a.m. ET at a press conference at
The Park Hyatt hotel in Toronto.
It will also be livestreamed on www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/live,
and the Scotiabank Giller Prize's YouTube and Facebook
page.
Between the Pages: An Evening with the Scotiabank Giller
Prize Finalists will be presented at Koerner Hall in
Toronto, on November 4. Hosted by Jael Richardson, it will be an hour of readings,
questions and answers, and will take you inside the minds and
creative lives of the writers on the 2021 shortlist. For more
information, please visit:
www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/news-events/events-and-important-dates/
Watch the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize on Monday, November 8, at 9
p.m. ET (11:30 AT, 12 midnight NT) on CBC and the free CBC
Gem streaming service.
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, graphic 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 a leading bank in the
Americas. Guided by our purpose: "for every future" we help our
customers, their families and their communities achieve success
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 over 90,000 employees and assets of
approximately $1.2 trillion (as at July 31, 2021),
Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New
York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BNS). For more information, please
visit http://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 also deliver content in
Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi and Tagalog, as well as both
official languages, through Radio Canada International (RCI). We
are leading the transformation to meet the needs of Canadians in a
digital world. Watch the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize on
Monday, November 8, at 9 p.m. (12 midnight NT, 11:30 p.m. AT) on CBC TV and the free CBC
Gem streaming service. A livestream will be available on CBC
Books, and a broadcast special will be available on CBC Radio One
and the CBC Listen App. For more information visit,
cbcbooks.ca/gillerprize
About Audible, Inc.
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.
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