Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Fifty-Grand Giller Goes International

MARTIN LEVIN, "SHELF LIFE," THE GLOBE AND MAIL:


Last year, the wonderful Irish writer Colm Toibin became the first non-Canadian juror for the distinguished fiction prize that was once simply the Giller, and is now the Scotiabank Giller Prize . . . I applaud the move. For one thing, it affirms the internationalisation of Canadian fiction. Like other "national" fiction, it may be usually firmly set in time and place, but great fiction is borderless in the sense that its appreciation is, or ought to be, unrestricted by circumstance.

JAMES ADAMS, "IN OTHER WORDS," THE GLOBE AND MAIL:


Yesterday the prize's founder, Toronto-based businessman Jack Rabinovitch, announced that for the first time, the Giller's three-member jury will include two non-Canadians: U.S. novelist Russell Banks (Continental Drift, Affliction), and British biographer Victoria Glendinning (Leonard Woolf: A Life, Vita: The Life of V. Sackville-West). Joining them as the sole Canadian juror is novelist/short-story writer Alistair MacLeod [The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, No Great Mischief], who served on the 2000 and 2004 panels.

No comments:

Post a Comment