QUILLBLOG

Giller longlist features many new faces

The jury for this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize, which today revealed the longlist for the $50,000 award, can’t be accused of hewing too closely to tradition.

Only one nominee, Annabel Lyon, has been shortlisted for the prize before. Absent from the list are past winners Linden MacIntyre, Vincent Lam, David Bergen, and M.G. Vassanji. (Another high-profile title – two-time winner Alice Munro’s forthcoming collection, Dear Life – will be published after the prize’s Sept. 30 cut-off date.)

As for the list itself, it’s a wide open field featuring titles that skew commercial (Will Ferguson’s 419, CS Richardson’s The Emperor of Paris) alongside more traditionally “literary” works (Kim Thúy’s Ru). Two short story collections, Cary Fagan’s My Life Among the Apes and Russell Wangersky’s Whirl Away, also made the list.

The longlist was chosen by a jury comprising Anna Porter, Roddy Doyle, and Gary Shteyngart. The nominees are:

• Marjorie Celona, Y (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Lauren B. Davis, Our Daily Bread (HarperCollins Canada)
• Cary Fagan, My Life Among the Apes (Cormorant Books)
• Will Ferguson, 419 (Viking Canada)
• Robert Hough, Dr. Brinkley’s Tower (House of Anansi Press)
• Billie Livingston, One Good Hustle (Random House Canada)
• Annabel Lyon, The Sweet Girl (Random House Canada)
• Alix Ohlin, Inside (Anansi)
• Katrina Onstad, Everybody Has Everything (McClelland & Stewart)
• CS Richardson, The Emperor of Paris (Doubleday Canada)
• Nancy Richler, The Imposter Bride (HarperCollins Canada)
• Kim Thúy; trans. Sheila Fischman, Ru (Random House Canada)
• Russell Wangersky, Whirl Away (Thomas Allen Publishers)

The Giller shortlist will be revealed Oct. 1, with the winner being announced Oct. 30.