This year, 3 highly talented writers based in British Columbia encompass half of the shortlist for the ScotiaBank Giller Prize. The full short list includes:
- Immigrant City by David Bezmozgis (Toronto, ON)
- Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles ( Montreal, QC)
- The Innocents by Michael Crummey ( St. John’s, NL)
- Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin ( Vancouver, BC)
- Lampedusa by Steven Price ( Victoria, BC)
- Reproduction by Ian Williams ( Vancouver, BC)
About The Giller Prize:
The Giller Prize was first announced in 1994, in tribute of literary journalist Doris Giller. The award acknowledges long form or short story fiction, written by Canadian authors. It is the largest cash prize for literature in Canada, holding tremendous honour. In 2005, Scotiabank began to co-sponsor the event, greatly increasing the endowment.
Biographies of BC Based Shortlisted Writers:
Alix Ohlin:
Alix Ohlin is currently the chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia. She is an author of four books, and has been featured in the New Yorker, Tin House and Best American Short Stories.
The Jury citation of her Novel:
Chronicling the wayward trajectories of two very different but equally fascinating Montreal-bred sisters from childhood into midlife, Alix Ohlin’s novel, true to its title, quietly refutes monolithic tenets that regard identity as something fixed and singular. Dividing its narrative between Canada and the U.S., the urban and the wild, solitude and solidarity, creativity and caregiving, Dual Citizens is a long-term sororal love story and affecting double-portrait of female self-actualization unthethered from established paradigms of ambition.
The Jury Citation of his Novel:
Ian Williams:
Named one of the top ten writers to watch by the CBC, Ian Williams is a poet. He is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of British Columbia and has a Ph.D. in English. Williams’ writing has been featured in several North American journals and anthologies.
The Jury Citation of his Novel:
Ian Williams’s Reproduction is many things at once. It’s an engrossing story of disparate people brought together and also a masterful unfolding of unexpected connections and collisions between and across lives otherwise separated by race, class, gender and geography. It’s a pointed and often playful plotting out of individual and shared stories in the close spaces of hospital rooms, garages, mansions and apartments, and a symphonic performance of resonant and dissonant voices, those of persons wanting to impress persuade, deny, or beguile others, and always trying again.
More Information
The winner of the ScotiaBank Giller Prized will be announced tonight, November 18, 2019. For more information, visit the official website here.
Update:
Congratulations to Ian Williams for winning the 2019 Giller Prize!
