2024 Giller Prize longlist
September 13th, 2024
Five BC-based authors have made it to the longlist of the 2024 Giller Prize, chosen from more than 100 books that were submitted by publishers across Canada. The shortlist for the prize will be announced on October 9, 2024. Continue reading to learn more about the BC-based authors that were selected.
Set against the eerie backdrop of Alberta’s badlands, Bad Land (Arsenal Pulp $24.95) by Corinna Chong (at right) follows Regina, a socially awkward loner whose quiet life with her pet bunny is disrupted when her estranged brother, Ricky, unexpectedly arrives with his unsettling six-year-old daughter, Jez. Regina senses something terrible has happened, and long-buried family secrets begin to surface. As the siblings embark on a tense journey through the badlands, Regina is forced to confront the complexities of guilt, memory and family love. The novel is a slow-burning exploration of repression, transgression, and how we shape our own versions of the truth to survive, blending gothic tension with moments of heartwarming compassion.
Caroline Adderson
Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy (Biblioasis $22.95) features a collection of stories about characters facing a variety of struggles, from the everyday to the extraordinary. These include addicts robbing parties to fund their recovery, a recently separated woman receiving a life-changing visitation in a small town, a Russian hitman confronting his buried past, and a group of women helping a girl escape an asylum in the 19th century. The stories explore the pursuit of happiness and highlight how it often comes through the grace and actions of others.
Shashi Bhat
Death by a Thousand Cuts (McClelland & Stewart $24.95) is a collection of stories by the Governor General’s Literary Award-shortlisted author, Shashi Bhat. Bhat delves into the everyday struggles and impossible expectations women face, exploring relationships and self-discovery. A writer learns her ex has published a novel about their breakup; an immuno-compromised woman falls in love, only for her body to betray her; a college student seeks to change her eye color after a hurtful comment. Other tales feature a shocking confession on Reddit, boundary-testing dates, and a woman’s nightmarish quest for answers as she loses her hair. With wit and tenderness, these stories confront themes of rage, longing, illness and bodily autonomy, examining their effects on women’s relationships with others and themselves.
Anne Flemming
Blending historical fiction with a modern-day narrative, Anne Flemming’s Curiosities (Knopf $35.00) follows Anne, an amateur historian with a passion for uncovering forgotten stories from 17th-century England. Anne discovers a memoir that intertwines five manuscripts, revealing a tale of survival, love and persecution. In a village struck by the Plague, two children, Joan and Thomasina, are the only survivors. After bonding with “Old Nut,” a woman later accused of witchcraft, their lives take divergent paths. Joan becomes a maid to Lady Margaret Long, while Thomasina, disguised as a boy, embarks on a dangerous journey to Virginia. Years later, Joan and Tom (formerly Thomasina) reunite and fall in love but are accused of sorcery due to Tom’s unconventional identity. Anne pieces together their story, bridging the past and present, as she seeks to uncover the fate of the lovers in a time when society had no language for who they truly were. The novel deftly explores themes of love, identity and the consequences of ignorance.
Loghan Paylor
Loghan Paylor’s latest novel, The Cure for Drowning (Penguin Random House $24.95) is a Canadian historical novel that boldly centers queer and non-binary characters. Kit McNair, born Kathleen to an Irish immigrant family in southern Ontario, nearly drowned at ten but was saved by their mother’s Celtic magic. Uncomfortable with the expectations of farm life, Kit, who prefers boys’ clothes, struggles to find where they belong. In 1939, they meet Rebekah Kromer, a German-Canadian doctor’s daughter, sparking a love triangle with Kit’s brother, Landon, that disrupts both families. Kit, now identifying as Christopher, joins the Royal Air Force, while Landon serves in the Navy, and Rebekah works in naval intelligence. After the war, they each return home, bringing their unresolved tensions with them. Told through the voices of Kit and Rebekah, the novel dives into identity, love and the lasting impacts of war, reimagining history with unforgettable detail.
Here’s what the jury had to say about the longlist: “Writers of fiction imagine, as a matter of course, what it means to be another: to be marginalized, to be suppressed, to be guilty—to be joyful! —or simply not seen. Their words sing lives, extol our virtues, nurse our injuries, expose our faults, and compel us to consider worlds about which we are curious and unknowing or had no idea existed. It is the profound belief in our common humanity writers share that makes this possible, a conviction never more important than in fractious times such as we are living today, and brilliantly on display in the concerns and stories of these twelve exceptional Canadian authors. The worlds they thrillingly put within readers’ reach scan centuries, cultures, divides; they are sometimes beautiful and sometimes traumatic, but always richly conveyed and ardently felt.”
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ABOUT THE AWARD
Founded by Jack Rabinovitch in 1994, the Giller Prize is Canada’s leading and most influential literary prize for fiction. The “Giller Effect” has been recognized industry wide as one of the top drivers of book sales in Canada. The Giller Prize 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 Jack Rabinovitch’s wife, the late literary journalist, Doris Giller. The Giller Prize is sponsored by Scotiabank, CBC Books, Mantella Corporation, Indigo, and the Azrieli Foundation.
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