Thirty years of the Giller Prize: Hung juries, Spanx ‘emergencies’ and great parties

A photograph of Jack Rabinovitch and his wife, Doris Giller, at his home on the day of his funeral in Toronto on Aug. 9, 2017. Rabinovitch founded the prize in 1994 to pay tribute to his wife, who died from cancer the year before.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail

The annual Scotiabank Giller Prize for Canadian fiction was founded in 1994 by Montreal businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, Doris Giller, who had died from cancer the year before. She was a beautiful, bold and brassy literary journalist – ‘Am I right or am I goddammed right?’ was a typical Gillerism.

A monument built by a bereaved husband, the Giller Prize is characterized by everything Giller enjoyed: roses, books, black-tie glitz and big parties. This year’s $100,000 Giller Prize will be handed out Nov. 13 in Toronto. The 2023 finalists are Sarah Bernstein (Study for Obedience), Eleanor Catton (Birnam Wood), Kevin Chong (The Double Life of Benson Yu), Dionne Irving (The Islands) and C.S. Richardson (All the Colour in the World).

In celebration of the 30th Giller, a group of authors, organizers and others spoke to The Globe and Mail about what some call the Oscars of Canadian literature.

Elana Rabinovitch, Giller executive director and daughter of Jack Rabinovitch When Doris died, my father was shattered. He was grappling with a way to pay tribute to her. Doris loved a party – she was a broad in the best sense of the word. The idea of a big, fancy party became the mainstay of what he wanted to do to honour her. He wanted the prize to be meaningful, and he wanted people to know where it came from.

David Staines, original jury member Doris Giller was an extravagantly wonderful woman. When Jack (who I didn’t know) first phoned me in 1993 after she died, he said, “I’m Jack Rabinovitch,” and then he burst into tears and hung up. He called back a couple of days later and said he wanted to start something and asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I said, “Yes,” and he said, “That’s all I needed to know,” and he hung up.

Author Jane Urquhart, centre, at the 1998 Giller Prize.Andrew Wallace/The Globe and Mail

Jane Urquhart, Giller finalist and jury member The Giller Prize came into the middle of a developmental phase of Canadian literature. And there was something wonderful about its birth. I mean, it was born out of a broken heart. How absolutely pure is that?

The launch of the new $25,000 prize took place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, on Jan. 19, 1994. Invited guests, the cream of the Canadian literature and publishing scene, were given brass letter openers. “Whose idea was it to give out daggers?” wrote The Globe and Mail’s Bronwyn Drainie.

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Kelly Duffin, Giller administrator from 1994 to 2000 It was important to get the media onboard. For the invitations to the first dinner, I hired a courier in butler clothes to deliver invitations to newsrooms. So, this guy would walk into the newsrooms dressed in a tuxedo with a silver tray with an oversized invitation and a rose for the books editor or the radio producer.

Bronwyn Drainie The mood in the room was festive almost to the point of chaotic. Mordecai Richler was in fine form, speaking on behalf of the jury at the prize launch. He reminded us that at the Governor-General’s Literary Awards, what the author gets, apart from the $10,000 cheque, is a copy of his or her own book signed by His Excellency. “I always thought that an act of great impertinence,” he opined. “We were the ones who had written the books. Why should the Governor-General get away with defacing a copy?”

The first Giller Prize was awarded at the Four Seasons in 1994 to M. G. Vassanji for The Book of Secrets. The jury comprised Staines, Alice Munro and Mordecai Richler.

M.G. Vassanji won the 2003 Giller Prize for The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. The author also won the very first Giller for The Book of Secrets.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Staines We read all the submitted books that came our way. Alice read some of them a second time to make sure of what she thought.

Urquhart Those first years were small events, 250 people. And the thing I recall most vividly was that everybody was associated in some way with the cultural world in Canada and every one of them seemed to have read all five books. It was pretelevision, which made it much more celebratory in a way. Nobody was required to abide by rules set by the television and the party went on as long as the party went on. Which it still does, but it had a different kind of organic flow to it.

Duffin The first year it was hard to convince people to come in the tuxedo and formal dress. After that, we had to turn people away, which was very hard for Jack to do. He even offered to blow out that back wall of the ballroom to gain an extra 10 feet. It didn’t happen.

Judy Gladstone, gala guest Hardcovers were often used as table decors. Seeing the staff chase after guests in their black-tie attire leaving with armfuls of books was always entertaining.

Jeannine Louise Pharand-Theyer, retired assistant director of catering We got to know the guests really well. Mordecai Richler had his own drink, Macallan Scotch. We did not display it at the bar for the other guests.

In 1996, Margaret Atwood won for Alias Grace.

Margaret Atwood I certainly wasn’t expecting it because by that time I was almost too senior. Sarah Cooper, who was working with me at that time, took the actual statue home with her. It was the original Giller statue, which was very large and indeterminate in outline. And she took it home and put it on the kitchen table and her husband was asleep at the time. And he got up in the middle of the night to get himself a snack and went into the kitchen and before he turned on the light, he saw this looming figure and thought someone had broken in.

André Alexis was nominated for a Giller Prize in 1998 for Childhood. He won in 2015 for Fifteen Dogs.FRED THORNHILL/Reuters

In 1998, writer André Alexis was nominated for Childhood.

André Alexis I was nominated at the same time as Alice Munro. [McClelland & Stewart publisher] Doug Gibson came up to me and said, “I have somebody who wants to meet you.” He took me a few tables back and all of a sudden I realized I was looking at Alice Munro. Which was, you know, for a Canadian author of my generation, pretty much looking at God. When they called out the winner, it was her. You can’t really be disappointed in that situation.

In 2000, for the first and only time, the Giller was awarded to two authors: Michael Ondaatje, for Anil’s Ghost, and David Adams Richards, for Mercy Among the Children. The indecisive jury members were Atwood, Urquhart and Alistair MacLeod.

Michael Ondaatje, left, and David Adams Richards were cowinners of the 2000 Giller Prize, after the jury couldn’t decide on just one. The rules were then changed so that only one author could win.TANNIS TOOHEY/The Canadian Press

Urquhart I have heard so many rumours: In some cases, I was the person who refused to make the decision; in another, Alistair was backing David Adams Richards and Atwood was backing Ondaatje and I was the peacemaker. The truth is that absolutely not one of us could make that decision.

Rabinovitch Jack would write five cheques and he would have them in his breast pocket. He would give out one and destroy the others. That night Jack gave out two cheques. He was happy to do it, but after that he decided there would only be one winner going forward.

Atwood I think he was pissed. But being such a classy gent and a good sport, he took it all in stride. And then he changed the rules, as one would. Glaring oversight.

The Giller jury is usually made up of authors, but also such notables as former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson and former Ontario premier (and current ambassador to the United Nations) Bob Rae.

Adrienne Clarkson When the Giller was created, some people complained that Canada already had an award for fiction, the Governor-General’s. I think that is silly. It’s important to look at things in different ways and have different judges.

Bob Rae It was an interesting challenge, but a lot of fun. I was a judge in 2008 with Colm Toibin and Margaret Atwood. Colm was a complete gentleman, and I’ve become a big fan of his work ever since. Margaret was decisive and she could be quite quick in saying which books were contenders and which were not. But, in the end, she’s very fair-minded.

Atwood Bob was very good. You’d think he’d be quite bossy, but he wasn’t.

The Giller ceremony was first televised in 1998 on Bravo!; since 2003, it has been carried by the CBC.

Barry Avrich, Giller broadcast executive producer It’s my job to bring the envelope with the winner’s name to the host of the show. I have two minutes after the last commercial break to get from my tech space through a room packed full of tables. In 2016, my first year, I got stopped numerous times by people looking to get more wine. I was wearing a tuxedo, and they thought I was a waiter.

Unlike at other award ceremonies, the Giller winner was kept a secret until the actual announcement. The surprise reveal was unpopular with journalists on a deadline.

Duffin In the early days, you could always tell who the journalists were. They would stand up the moment the winner was announced and run to the payphones in the hotel. There would be a line-up of journalists with quarters to phone into their newsrooms.

The Giller Prize became the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2005 and the winner’s cheque was boosted to $40,000. (It is now $100,000.) David Bergen won for The Time in Between.

Rabinovitch Jack was running out of money to fund the prize. He wasn’t working at that point. We realized we had to get a good title sponsor onboard.

David Bergen I was still teaching at the time and I thought I was pretty hot stuff; here I had won the Giller. So I went to my principal, I think about two months later, and said, “I quit.” But then it’s back to the regular and people move on to other things and you realize you’re only as good as your next book so you settle down and start writing your next book.

Physician Vincent Lam won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his short-story collection Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. He recalls having to give up his shift in the emergency department the following day to do media.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail

In 2006, physician and writer Vincent Lam won the prize for Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures.

Vincent Lam I learned that the normal thing is that you spend the next day doing media. Because I didn’t think I was going to win, I was scheduled to work in the emergency department the next day. So I reached out to my colleagues at the hospital to find out if anyone could cover my shift the next day. And because I have such great colleagues and I guess because they had been watching television, they were like, “Yeah, we figured you wouldn’t be coming in.”

Elizabeth Hay won for Late Nights on Air in 2007.

Elizabeth Hay When I was onstage after I’d won the award, Alice Munro, who was sitting at a table toward the front, got up and came onstage with me and we stood there together and held hands. Now I didn’t know Alice Munro except as this devoted reader and the fact that she would come up like that to congratulate me really meant the world to me. And sort of felt like I was being taken into the fold somehow.

Elizabeth Hay, left, is congratulated by Alice Munro after accepting the 2007 Giller Prize. Munro served on the prize’s first jury in 1994.J.P. Moczulski/The Canadian Press

That same year, Atwood and her partner, Graeme Gibson, upset with the Four Seasons’ involvement in a resort development in Grenada, refused the hotel meal.

Atwood We were upset at the Four Seasons because [we were concerned the construction would] wipe out the Grenada Dove. So we brought our boxed dinners as a protest.

In 2011, Esi Edugyan won for Half-Blood Blues, a milestone victory.

Esi Edugyan won the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize for Half-Blood Blues, The author says she was unaware she was the first Black woman to win the prize until a media scrum afterward. 'I was so honoured to have done that,' she says.Michelle Siu/The Globe and Mail

Esi Edugyan There’s a media scrum and you’re answering questions and you can barely think of the words to say. Mark Medley [now an editor at The Globe and Mail] asked me: “How do you feel to be the first Black woman to win the prize?” And it was news to me. I hadn’t even thought of it in those terms and I stumbled through an answer. That’s quite a thing, right? So I just felt like this was a huge seismic thing and I was so honoured to have done that.

In 2015, Anakana Schofield was shortlisted for Martin John, alongside Samuel Archibald (Arvida), Rachel Cusk (Outline) and Heather O’Neill (Daydreams of Angels). That year’s winner was André Alexis, for Fifteen Dogs. Schofield was dressed and styled for the gala by professionals, courtesy of the Giller organization.

Anakana Schofield They had put me inside the dress. And I had to go to the toilet. I had a huge, long train on my dress and I get in the toilet and I’m trying to hold the thing; it was like Lady Diana’s wedding dress. And I’m trying to get the Spanx down, and then I take a piddle, I can’t get it back up. It’s impossible. So I come out and Esi Edugyan was in the toilet and Esi said, “Anakana, they’re all looking for you.” The thing had started and I wasn’t at the table. They’re freaking out – where is she? I was having my Spanx emergency.

Alexis Everyone was expecting Anakana to win so I wasn’t feeling any pressure. So when my name was announced, it was a surprise. But then my sisters and some of their kids came running through the room and they swarmed me onstage. It was really the onslaught of my family and everybody hanging off me. And that was the happiest I’ve ever been as a writer, actually. Because it was sharing something so fundamental with my family. Fifteen Dogs changed how people thought of me; it really did change how people think about my work.

When Jack Rabinovitch died in 2017, the gala lost some of its soul.

Rae It’s hard for me to attend now that Jack’s not there. He was one of my best, best friends. The dinner has lost a bit of its intimacy that it had in the early days.

Avrich Jack’s favourite song was Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. After he died, we had a choir and Measha Brueggergosman singing live, with a beautiful montage of Jack and the Gillers. It was a Hollywood moment, and incredibly touching.

Presenter and Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman, left, and nominee Kim Thuy, right, pose for a photo on the red carpet at The 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize awards night on Oct. 30. 2012.The Globe and Mail

Measha Brueggergosman Aside from singing Both Sides Now directly to Joni Mitchell, singing Hallelujah may have been the most nervous I’ve ever been for a live broadcast.

In 2020, the third version of the Giller trophy was created by glass artist Minna Koistinen and presented to Souvankham Thammavongsa at her apartment for the short-story collection How to Pronounce Knife. Because of the pandemic, a virtual ceremony was held online, with the shortlisted authors in their homes.

Souvankham Thammavongsa The night before, the cameraperson came to my house and set up the camera and the lighting and told me he’d be back the next evening.

Avrich We had a camera crew inside Souvankham’s condo, but we also rented a room through Airbnb in her building to hide our second camera unit who would knock on her door the moment she won and present her with the award. That whole day we hid a camera crew, hoping she didn’t see us.

Souvankham Thammavongsa won the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize for the short-story collection How to Pronounce Knife.Nathan Dharamshi/The Canadian Press

The jury, including twice-previously shortlisted author Eden Robinson, had only met remotely and viewed the live ceremony from their homes.

Robinson I was in my La-Z-Boy, watching. I put on the sparkliest dress I have and did my hair. I had Pad Thai and champagne.

Koistinen The award is a stack of books and it’s heavy – about 15 pounds. There was concern whether Souvankham would be able to lift it. They walked up to her condo door with the prize, rang her doorbell and gave it to her. She grabbed it and lifted it above her head with one hand. I was watching on television, saying, “Yes, you go girl!”

The following year, amid the pandemic, the Giller held a smaller-than-usual in-person festival. Atwood was among those who attended. Omar El Akkad won for What Strange Paradise.

Atwood I’d been vaccinated. We didn’t do a lot of hugging and kissing, as I recall.

Omar El Akkad It was my first time being with those kinds of numbers [of people] in literally years. And I walk in and they gave me the little flower that I pin onto my tuxedo, the one tuxedo I own, the same tuxedo I got married in. I’d been doing 12 COVID tests an hour since I’d landed in Toronto and my defining thought as I walk into this very swanky ballroom is: “Boy, I hope I don’t kill Margaret Atwood.”

After I won, they quickly shuttle you out of there to take you up to, I think, the 17th floor where the reporters are waiting because a lot of the print deadlines are coming up. We go to the kitchen, the service elevator, which promptly breaks down. So I spent the first 20 minutes of my life as a Giller winner stuck in an elevator.

Omar El Akkad won the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel What Strange Paradise.Chris Young/The Canadian Press

Suzette Mayr, who won a year ago for The Sleeping Car Porter, allocated her $100,000 sensibly.

Suzette Mayr won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize for The Sleeping Car Porter.Cole Burston

Suzette Mayr I have read so many stories about female writers who end up dying in poverty. And I’m a childless person so I salted away a huge chunk of it for old age. And then I put some money down on the mortgage. And then I bought the most beautiful sectional sofa I have ever seen in my life. I got a big old purple sectional.

Over three decades, the gala dinner and the Giller itself have evolved.

Grazyna Krupa, in charge of CBC arts programming The chumminess of the early years was very nice. But it was an exclusive little club, and now that has opened up. These newer authors haven’t been part of each other’s lives in the way that clubby Mordecai Richler/Alice Munro/Margaret Atwood and company were. It’s a different vibe now.

Laura Curtis Ferrera, chief marketing officer, Scotiabank We have the Between the Pages tour, which brings shortlisted books and authors across the country and to the U.S., Mexico and Europe. We’ve also partnered with Little Free Library and we’ve donated thousands of books over the past two years. What intrigues me is that the Giller can be a force for good 365 days a year now, not just the night of the gala.