Debut Novelist Wins Canada’s Richest Literary Prize

Debut novelist Johanna Skibsrud was awarded the $50,000 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize in a ceremony in Toronto last night. The event, which will be televised on CTV Wednesday evening, drew almost 500 members of the publishing and arts communities including presenters 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Linden MacIntyre, multi-award winning singer-songwriter Anne Murray, Macleans columnist and award-winning author Barbara Amiel Black, CTV News anchor Lisa LaFlamme and Blue Rodeo frontman and solo musician Jim Cuddy.

The Montreal Gazette describes the unusual publishing history of the “dark horse” winner, Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists published by Gaspereau Press:

Set in part in the town of Casablanca, [Ontario], on the edge of man-made Lake St. Lawrence, The Sentimentalists explores the relationship between an unnamed narrator and her father, Napoleon, who fought in the Vietnam War. The novel was originally published in October 2008 -- too late to qualify for last year’s prize -- but came and went without much attention; it garnered scant reviews, sold a few hundred copies, and remained relatively unknown until being named to the long list in September.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize is one of the richest literary prizes in the world. It annually awards $50,000 to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $5,000 to each of the finalists.

In 2010, the other finalists were:

• The Matter with Morris, by David Bergen (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollin)
• Light Lifting, by Alexander MacLeod (Biblioasis)
• This Cake is for the Party, by Sarah Selecky (Thomas Allen)
• Annabel, by Kathleen Winter (House of Anansi)