Photos: Scotiabank Giller Prize gala

On Tuesday night, the literary community showed off its tuxes and gowns for the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize gala, but it was Will Ferguson, outfitted in a kilt adorned with a flask, who stole the show, winning the award for his novel 419.

Click on the thumbnails to browse photos from the evening.

Will Ferguson’s 419 wins Giller

As a humourist and travel writer, Will Ferguson is already well known to Canadian readers. After winning this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Calgary author is poised to become even more renowned for his work as a serious novelist.

Ferguson won the $50,000 prize, handed out in Toronto Tuesday night, for his third novel, 419 (Viking Canada), a fast-paced thriller that delves into the world of Nigerian email fraud. It is a thematic companion of sorts to his previous novel, Spanish Fly, which follows a gang of con artists in 1930s America.

Before winning the Giller, Ferguson was best known for his humour books and travel memoirs, which include Beyond Belfast, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, and Canadian Pie. He alluded to this eclectic background in accepting the award, thanking the jury – which comprised authors Anna Porter, Roddy Doyle, and Gary Shteyngart – for “taking books on their own merit, without any preconceptions.”

In addition to thanking his family, Ferguson singled out his editor, Vancouver freelancer Barbara Pulling, and his publisher, Penguin Canada, saying, “I am proud to be a Penguin, I must say.”

Porter said the jury was conscious of breaking with precedent in awarding the prize to 419, which she compared to the work of John le Carré. “I think it’s got both great story and literary values,” she said.

When asked if the novel was the jury’s unanimous pick as the winner, Porter said that all three jurors “unanimously loved the book” and that “from the very beginning, we all unanimously agreed that it would be on the shortlist.”

Speaking to Q&Q after the announcement, Ferguson emphasized his gratitude for the support he has received throughout his writing career. “My publisher took more of a risk than I did, to be honest, when I switched to literary fiction,” he said.

Ferguson added that he views 419 as a companion to his previous novel. “Everyone’s saying it’s a departure, which is understandable, but I think it’s a continuum with Spanish Fly,” he said. “I didn’t think of it as out of the blue.”

For her part, Penguin Canada publisher Nicole Winstanley described Ferguson as “a man who wears several hats. He’s an author who knows how to tell a remarkable story in an interesting way.”

Winstanley added that the book will be reprinted in hardcover into the new year. The title has also been added to Pintail, a U.S. imprint for Penguin Canada titles with sales potential south of the border.

As for his next book, Ferguson plans to return to his earlier passion with a travel memoir about an upcoming journey through Rwanda.

“When I started out my dream was to work for Lonely Planet,” said Ferguson, who wrote one guide book before realizing he couldn’t hack it. “My initial dream was to be a hardcore travel writer, but I write what grabs my attention.”

Joseph Boyden’s new novel to examine Canada’s formative years

Joseph Boyden’s writing interweaves the multifarious spirit of Canadian experiences by drawing upon a wealth of northern narratives. His first novel, Three Day Road (Penguin Canada), examines the trauma of the First World War through the story of two young Cree men, while his 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning novel Through Black Spruce (Viking Canada) questions the death of tradition in First Nations communities. Now, Boyden’s new novel, The Orenda, to be published by Hamish Hamilton Canada, takes a further look back into Canada’s formative years.

The Orenda opens in the 1630s with the kidnapping of a gifted Iroquois child, and the arrival of a charming Jesuit missionary, who interposes himself into the native community, in order to lead them onto the path of Christ.

Boyden’s long-time editor Nicole Winstanley, president and publisher of Penguin Canada, acquired the book. In a press release she says:

History is often portrayed in fiction in soft-light and sepia-tones … With The Orenda, Joseph brings a vivid immediacy to the violent collision of social, political, and spiritual forces that forged the beginnings of our country.

Publication is planned for September 2013.

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.

Esi Edugyan makes Orange Prize shortlist

Esi Edugyan has made the Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist. The award celebrates “excellence, originality, and accessibility in women’s writing.”

Edugyan’s novel Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen Publishers) will compete against Anne Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz, Georgina Harding’s Painter of Silence, Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, Cynthia Ozick’s Foreign Bodies, and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder for the £30,000 prize, to be presented on May 30.

Half-Blood Blues, which won the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize, is also shortlisted for the B.C. Book Prize, which will be announced on April 19, and the U.K.’s Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, which will be awarded on June 16.

David Bergen shortlisted for IMPAC Dublin

David Bergen is the sole Canadian nominated for this year’s IMPAC Dublin Award, at €100,00 the world’s richest prize for an English-language work of fiction. The Winnipeg author was shortlisted for his novel The Matter with Morris, which was also a finalist for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

The complete shortlist is as follows:

• Rocks in the Belly by Jon Bauer (Scribe Publications)
• The Matter with Morris by David Bergen (HarperCollins Canada)
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf)
• The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury)
• Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor (Bloomsbury)
• Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Landed by Tim Pears (William Heinemann)
• Limassol by Yishai Sarid; translated from Hebrew by Barbara Harshav (Europa Editions)
• The Eternal Son by Cristovão Tezza; translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin (Scribe)
• Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin (Faber & Faber)

The last Canadian to win the prize was Rawi Hage in 2008 for De Niro’s Game. Alistair MacLeod won in 2001 for No Great Mischief.

Esi Edugyan, JJ Lee, Charlotte Gill nominated for B.C. Book Prizes

The West Coast Book Prize Society has announced the shortlists for the 28th annual B.C. Book Prizes, and for Esi Edugyan, the competition cuts close to home.

Edugyan, whose novel Half-Blood Blues won the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize and this morning was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, is competing against her husband, Steven Price, and his novel, Into That Darkness, for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Both books are published by Thomas Allen Publishers.

Charles Taylor Prize for Non-fiction shortlisted authors Charlotte Gill and JJ Lee face off again, this time for the Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize, alongside 2012 Canada Reads finalist Carmen Aguirre. Gill is also nominated for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award.

The winners in all seven categories will be announced at the Lieutenant Governor’s B.C. Book Prizes Gala on May 12 in Vancouver.

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize:

• Michael Christie, The Beggar’s Garden (HarperCollins Canada)
• Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen Publishers)
• Frances Greenslade, Shelter (Random House Canada)
• Steven Price, Into That Darkness (Thomas Allen)
• D.W. Wilson, Once You Break a Knuckle (Hamish Hamilton Canada)

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize:

• Chuck Davis, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver (Harbour Publishing)
• Fred Herzog, Fred Herzog: Photographs (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Andrew Nikiforuk, Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America’s Great Forests (Greystone Books)
• Sheryl Salloum, The Life and Art of Mildred Valley Thornton (Mother Tongue Publishing)
• Scott Watson, Thrown: British Columbia’s Apprentices of Bernard Leach and Their Contemporaries (Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery)

Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize:

• Carmen Aguirre, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Gary Geddes, Drink the Bitter Root: A Writer’s Search for Justice and Redemption in Africa (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Charlotte Gill, Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-planting Tribe (Greystone Books)
• Theresa Kishkan, Mnemonic: A Book of Trees (Goose Lane Editions)
• JJ Lee, The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit (M&S)

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize:

• Patrick Lane, The Collected Poems of Patrick Lane (Harbour)
• Susan McCaslin, Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press)
• Garry Thomas Morse, Discovery Passages (Talonbooks)
• John Pass, crawlspace (Harbour)
• Sharon Thesen, Oyama Pink Shale (House of Anansi Press)

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize:

• Dan Bar-el and Rae Maté, Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? (Simply Read Books)
• Nicola I. Campbell and Kim La Fave, Grandpa’s Girls (Groundwood Books)
• Mike Deas, Dalen & Gole: Scandal in Port Angus (Orca Book Publishers)
• Robert Heidbreder and Marc Mongeau, Shake-Awakes (Tradewind Books)
• Sara O’Leary and Julie Morstad, When I Was Small (Simply Read)

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize:

• Glen Huser, The Runaway (Tradewind)
• Pamela Porter, I’ll Be Watching (Groundwood)
• Karen Rivers, What is Real (Orca)
• Caitlyn Vernon, Nowhere Else on Earth: Standing Tall for the Great Bear Rainforest (Orca)
• Moira Young, Blood Red Road (Doubleday Canada)

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award:

• Chuck Davis, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver (Harbour)
• Charlotte Gill, Eating Dirt (Greystone)
• Fred Herzog, Fred Herzog: Photographs (Douglas & McIntyre Editions)
• Gary Hynes, Island Wineries of British Columbia (TouchWood)
• Robert J. Wiersema, Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen (Greystone)

Esi Edugyan, Emma Donoghue make Orange Prize longlist

Esi Edugyan

In honour of International Women’s Day, the Orange Prize for Fiction, celebrating “excellence, originality, and accessibility in women’s writing,” has announced its 2012 longlist, which includes two celebrated Canadian authors.

Emma Donoghue, whose novel Room was shortlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize and won the 2010 Writers’ Trust Prize, is nominated for The Sealed Letter, a 2008 novel published by HarperCollins. Picador reissued a special paperback version for the U.K. market in early 2012, one of 12 titles marking the publisher’s 40th anniversary.

Donoghue is accompanied by fellow Canadian Esi Edugyan, who made the longlist with Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen Publishers), which won the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was  nominated today for the B.C. Book Prize.

Here is the Orange Prize longlist:

• Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen Publishers)
• Karin Altenberg, Island of Wings (House of Anansi Press)
• Aifric Campbell, On the Floor (Serpent’s Tail/Consortium)
• Leah Hager Cohen, The Grief of Others (Riverhead/Penguin)
• Emma Donoghue, The Sealed Letter (HarperCollins)
• Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz (McClelland & Stewart)
• Roopa Farooki, The Flying Man (Headline Review)
• Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (Vintage Canada)
• Georgina Harding, Painter of Silence (Bloomsbury)
• Jane Harris, Gillespie and I (HarperCollins)
• Francesca Kay, The Translation of the Bones (Phoenix)
• A.L. Kennedy, The Blue Book (Jonathan Cape)
• Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus (Doubleday Canada)
• Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (HarperCollins)
• Cynthia Ozick, Foreign Bodies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Thomas Allen)
• Ann Patchett, State of Wonder (HarperCollins)
• Ali Smith, There but for the (Penguin)
• Anna Stothard, The Pink Hotel (Alma Books)
• Stella Tillyard, Tides of War (Vintage Canada)
• Amy Waldman, The Submission (HarperCollins)

Judged by Joanna Trollope, Lisa Appignanesi, Victoria Derbyshire, Natalie Haynes, and Natasha Kaplinksy, the Orange Prize awards the winner with a cheque for £30,000 and a limited-edition bronze figurine known as “Bessie.” The shortlist will be announced April 17 and the awards ceremony takes place May 30.

Scotiabank Giller Prize announces 2012 jury: Gary Shteyngart, Anna Porter, and Roddy Doyle

Jack Rabinovitch, founder of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, has announced the jury for 2012 is Gary Shteyngart, Anna Porter, and Roddy Doyle.

Shteyngart is an American writer whose most recent novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize in the U.K.

Canada’s Porter is the former publisher and founder of Key Porter Books, and an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction. Her book Kasztner’s Train won the Canadian Jewish Book Award and the Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize.

Irish novelist and screenwriter Doyle’s most recent books include Bullfighting and A Greyhound of a Girl. His novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize in 1993.

The Giller Prize longlist will be announced Sept. 4 and the shortlist will be unveiled Oct. 1. The winner will be announced Oct. 30 at a gala ceremony in Toronto. The award is worth $50,000.

BookNet bestsellers: Canadian fiction

Esi Edugyan’s Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning novel, Half-Blood Blues, remains on top of this week’s Canadian fiction bestsellers’ list. For the two weeks ending Jan. 22:

1. Half-Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan
(Thomas Allen Publishers, $24.95 pa, 9780887627415)

2. The Winter Palace, Eva Stachniak
(Doubleday Canada, $24.95 pa, 9780385666565)

3. The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt
(House of Anansi Press, $22.95 pa, 9781770890329)

4. The Virgin Cure, Ami McKay
(Knopf Canada, $32 cl, 9780676979565)

5. The Cat’s Table, Michael Ondaatje
(McClelland & Stewart, $32 cl, 9780771068645)

6. Bride of New France, Suzanne Desrochers
(Penguin Canada, $16 pa, 9780143173397)

7. Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda
(HarperCollins Canada, $19.99 pa, 9780061974304)

8. The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill
(HarperCollins Canada, $10.99 mm, 9781443408981)

9. Room, Emma Donoghue
(HarperCollins Canada, $19.99 pa, 9781554688326)

10. An Irish Country Village, Patrick Taylor
(Forge Books/Raincoast, $9.99 mm, 9780765368256)

11. The Midwife of Venice, Roberta Rich
(Doubleday Canada, $22.95 pa, 9780385668279)

12. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
(HarperCollins Canada, $16.50 pa, 9780006391555)

13. The Best Laid Plans, Terry Fallis
(McClelland & Stewart, $19.99 pa, 9780771047589)

14. Ru, Kim Thuy; Sheila Fischman, trans.
(Random House Canada, $25 cl, 9780307359704)

15. Bad Boy, Peter Robinson
(McClelland & Stewart, $9.99 mm, 9780771076336)

16. Annabel, Kathleen Winter
(Anansi, $19.95 pa, 9780887842900)

17. The Wild Beasts of Wuhan, Ian Hamilton
(Spiderline/Anansi, $19.95 pa, 9780887842535)

18. The Illustrated Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill
(HarperCollins Canada, $19.99 cl, 9781443412193)

19. Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton
(Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95 cl, 9781770460607)

20. The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway
(Random House of Canada, $21 pa, 9780307397041)