The group of authors in contention for this year’s $100,000 Giller Prize has been whittled down to 12, but one name is notably absent from the list: Scotiabank.
Giller Foundation Executive Director Elana Rabinovitch says the big bank remains the lead sponsor of the award, but its name has been removed from the prize title to keep the focus on the authors.
The rebranding comes after protesters disrupted 2023's ceremony to decry the bank’s investment in an Israeli weapons manufacturer.
In the months since last year’s protest, members of the literary community have pushed for the Giller Foundation to end its 20-year partnership with Scotiabank, as well as financial relationships with other sponsors they say have ties to Israel's army.
The two international judges on this year’s five-member jury resigned from their positions in July and numerous authors – including past prize contenders – withdrew their names from consideration for the award.
This year’s long list includes British Columbia authors Anne Fleming for her novel “Curiosities” and Loghan Paylor for their novel “The Cure for Drowning,” both of which deal with questions of gender and sexuality in eras when those conversations were much less common.
Gender themes feature prominently on the long list, and only two of the 12 finalists are men.
They are Montreal's Éric Chacour for his novel “What I Know About You,” which was translated from the original French, and Edmonton's Conor Kerr for his novel “Prairie Edge.”
Also in contention are Toronto poet Anne Michaels for her novel “Held,” Toronto-based Deepa Rajagopalan for her short story collection “Peacocks of Instagram,” Vancouver-based Caroline Adderson for her short story collection “A Way to Be Happy” and B.C.-based Shashi Bhat for her collection “Death by a Thousand Cuts.”
Rounding out the list are Kelowna, B.C.'s Corinna Chong for her novel “Bad Land,” Massachusetts-based Claire Messud for the novel “This Strange Eventful History,” Ontario's Jane Urquhart for her novel “In Winter I Get Up at Night” and Winnipeg's katherena vermette for her novel “real ones.”
In an emailed statement, Rabinovitch said the Giller Foundation wants people to pay attention to the art, rather than the money.
“Ultimately, more than ever, we want to ensure the prize stays true to its purpose: to celebrate the best in Canadian fiction and to give the stage to Canada’s best storytellers. For us, that means ensuring the focus remains solely on the prize and the art itself,” Rabinovitch said.
Though 20-odd authors said they had directed their publishers not to submit their works for the prize, the Giller Foundation says the three remaining jury members picked from 112 submissions – on par with 2017 and more than 2018.
The number is, however, down from last year and the year before – a change the foundation attributes to a backlog of book publications in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.