TORONTO, Nov. 7, 2022
/CNW/ - Suzette Mayr has been named
the winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel,
The Sleeping Car Porter, published by Coach House Books,
taking home $100,000 courtesy of
Scotiabank.
The announcement was made at a black-tie dinner and award
ceremony hosted by poet, artist and performer Rupi Kaur and award-winning actor
Sarah Gadon, attended by over
300 guests. The gala was broadcast live commercial-free presented
by Scotia Wealth Management on CBC, CBC Radio One, and streamed
live on CBCBooks.ca.
This year, the Prize celebrates its 29th
anniversary.
The remaining finalists, listed below, will each
receive $10,000:
- Kim Fu for her short
story collection, Lesser-Known Monsters of the 21st Century,
published by Coach House Books
- Rawi Hage for his short
story collection, Stray Dogs, published by Knopf Canada
- Tsering Yangzom Lama for
her novel, We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies, published
by McClelland & Stewart
- Noor Naga for her novel, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak
English, published by Graywolf
Press
The longlist, shortlist, and winner of the 2022 Scotiabank
Giller Prize were selected by an esteemed five-member jury panel:
Canadian authors Kaie
Kellough, Casey
Plett (Jury Chair), and Waubgeshig
Rice, joined by American authors Katie Kitamura and Scott Spencer. On September 6, the jury narrowed down the 138
submitted works to 14 to create the longlist. The shortlist of five
was selected on September 27. And
just this very morning, the jury met to choose tonight's
winner.
Of the winning book, the jury wrote:
"Suzette Mayr brings to life
–believably, achingly, thrillingly –a whole world contained in a
passenger train moving across the Canadian vastness, nearly one
hundred years ago. As only occurs in the finest historical novels,
every page in The Sleeping Car Porter feels alive and
immediate –and eerily contemporary. The sleeping car porter in this
sleek, stylish novel is named R.T. Baxter –called George by the people
upon whom he waits, as is every other Black porter. Baxter's dream of one day going to school to
learn dentistry coexists with his secret life as a gay man, and in
Mayr's triumphant novel we follow him not only from Montreal to Calgary, but into and out of the lives of an
indelibly etched cast of supporting characters, and, finally, into
a beautifully rendered radiance."
Suzette Mayr is the author
of the novels Dr. Edith Vane and
the Hares of Crawley Hall, Monoceros, Moon
Honey, The Widows, and Venous Hum. The Widows was
shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book in
the Canada-Caribbean region, and has been translated into
German. Moon Honey was
shortlisted for the Writers' Guild of Alberta's Best First Book and Best Novel
Awards. Monoceros won the ReLit Award, the City of Calgary
W. O. Mitchell Book Prize, was longlisted for the 2011 Giller
Prize, and shortlisted for a Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction,
and the Georges Bugnet Award for
Fiction. She and her partner live in a house in Calgary close to a park teeming with
coyotes.
Listen to CBC Radio's q tomorrow for an interview with
Suzette Mayr and relive the
gala at CBCBooks.ca.
Ask the author your questions about her book during a live
Twitter chat hosted by @GillerPrize on Thursday, November 10, at 2 p.m. ET using the hashtag #GillerWinner.
Images from tonight's gala will be available on the Media
Resources page at www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca
Quotes
"Suzette Mayr's magnificent and
powerful work of fiction inspired this year's jury to select her as
the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner and cements her reputation
as a world-class writer. Heartiest congratulations to Suzette on
her win tonight!"
Elana Rabinovitch, Executive
Director, Scotiabank Giller Prize
"Congratulations to Suzette Mayr
for winning the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Scotiabank is proud
that our partnership with the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which began
in 2005, has helped raise the profile of Canada's top literary talent at home and
abroad. Thank you to the jury for taking on the challenge of
selecting tonight's winner from an outstanding group of authors.
Congratulations again to Suzette, and to all of the short- and
longlisted authors. Your stories have inspired and enriched readers
from coast-to-coast-to-coast."
Laura Curtis Ferrera, Chief
Marketing Officer, Scotiabank
PARTNERSHIPS AND SPONSORSHIPS:
The winner of the 2022
Scotiabank Giller Prize will join the Guadalajara International
Book Fair for a celebratory event on November 30, 2022, at the
World Trade Center Guadalajara.
The winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize will also be honoured
with an in-person interview as part of the 2023 San Miguel Writer's
Conference & Literary Festival, on February 16, 2023. Other notable interviews have
included both Tom Hanks and
Matthew McConaughey, along with
Margaret Atwood, Isabel Allende, Isabel
Wilkerson, Emma Donoghue, and
many more.
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
four-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
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Americas. Guided by our purpose: "for every future", we help our
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About Indigo Books & Music
Inc.
Indigo is a publicly traded Canadian company
listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (IDG). Indigo
is Canada's leading book and lifestyle retailer, offering
a curated assortment of books, gifts, baby, kids, wellness and
lifestyle products, that support their customers every day and at
key life stages by simplifying their journey to live with
intention. Indigo believes in real books, in living life fully and
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little – connect us.
The Company supports a separate registered charity, called the
Indigo Love of Reading Foundation (the "Foundation"), which is
committed to addressing educational inequality, and more
specifically the literacy crisis in Canada. The Foundation
runs two annual national granting programs: the Literacy Fund
Grant, which is a multi-year grant provided to high-needs schools
across the country; and the Adopt a School program, a grassroots
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closures, the Foundation committed $1.0 million to
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committed over $35.0 million to more than 3,500
high-needs elementary schools across Canada since 2004.
The Foundation is dedicated to raising awareness about the critical
importance of children's literacy while providing essential
literary support to high-needs children across Canada.
To learn more about Indigo, please visit the "Our Company"
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SOURCE Scotiabank