The Giller Prize Shortlist – My Thoughts

The Giller Prize

Hi everyone! The Giller Prize shortlist came out today, and I feel like talking about it.

In case you aren’t familiar with the Giller Prize, or The Artist Formerly Known As the Scotiabank Giller Prize (more on that in a sec), it’s the most prestigious literary award in Canada. There’s a televised ceremony and everything. Which is crazy because, according to the rest of the world, the only Canadian author is Margaret Atwood! (Pardon my bitter Canadian snark, and may I point you towards my Top 100 Canadian Books of All Time list, whose purpose it is to help dispel this popular myth? *cough* But I digress.)

Of course, a prestigious literary award can’t exist without its controversies. The Giller Prize has been accused of being too Toronto-publisher-centric, too artsy-small-press-centric, and most recently too arming-Israel-centric. The latter was the fault of the prize’s main sponsor, Scotiabank, which was outed last year for investing hundreds of millions of dollars in an Israeli military technology company. Authors declared they would boycott the award until Scotiabank changed its ways. Instead, the Giller Prize and Scotiabank cut ties. The future of the prize is now in doubt if it can’t find new sponsors, but hey, it’s still kicking for now!

This Year’s Shortlist

Here’s the official announcement of this year’s shortlist (link will open in a new tab). There’s lots of info on there if you’re interested to learn more. I’m just going to offer my brief thoughts on what I know or feel about each title and author, and I’ll follow up with a more in-depth post in November once I’ve read all of the books.

Mona Awad – We Love You, Bunny

Bunny by Mona Awad was my absolute favourite read of 2024, and this is its… sequel? prequel? This is its continuation, anyway. I’m so excited to read it! It’s sitting right there on my shelf, but I wanted to squeeze in a Bunny re-read first. I’ll get to it soon. I’ve read 2 books by Mona Awad so far (All’s Well is also fantastic), and she has quickly become a favourite author of mine.

Eddy Boudel Tan – The Tiger and the Cosmonaut

I haven’t heard anything about this author or this novel before, but it’s described as a noirish literary suspense thriller, so I’m intrigued. And what a title!

Emma Donoghue – The Paris Express

I’ve read and loved Donoghue’s Room and The Wonder, so I was excited to read The Paris Express earlier this year. Sadly, I found it disappointing. You can read my review here. It wouldn’t be the first time that I book I didn’t like wins a prestigious award, so I’m not counting it out of contention by any means. But it’s the only one of these five books that I’ve read at this point, and I didn’t like it! Oh dear.

Emma Knight – The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

Never heard of this one before, and I’m afraid I don’t have high expectations that I’ll like it. It’s marketed as a coming-of-age romance, and those are two genres I actively avoid. But it’s set at the University of Edinburgh, which is cool, so maybe I’ll at least enjoy that?

Souvankham Thammavongsa – Pick a Colour

I’ve read Thammavongsa’s short story collection How to Pronounce Knife, and it was pretty good even though I didn’t like some of the stories. One story I did enjoy was “Mani Pedi,” and I’m pretty sure this novel is an expansion of it. “A retired boxer opens a nail salon” sounds familiar, anyway. Thammavongsa writes mainly about the experiences of Lao immigrants in Canada, which is a unique perspective that deserves more attention.

So those are the contenders for this year’s Giller Prize. My library has all 3 of the books I need to get my hands on, but a couple of them have long wait lists. I just hope they come in in time for me to read them before the winner is announced on November 17. Next year I need to pay more attention to the longlist when it first comes out!

Will you be watching the Giller Prize ceremony this year? Which book would you like to win?