Canada's Giller Prize long list announced

James Adams writing in the Globe and Mail
September 16, 2008

Three former winners of the Scotiabank Giller Prize are among the 15 writers named yesterday to the long list for English Canada's most prestigious and commercially significant award for literary fiction, now in its 15th year.

David Adams Richards, 2000 co-winner with Michael Ondaatje,(pic left), has been nominated for his novel The Lost Highway, while David Bergen, the 2005 Giller champion, got a nod for his novel The Retreat, as did another novelist, 2002 winner Austin Clarke, for More.

The trio, along with the other nominees, will find out Oct. 7 if they're on the five-nominee short list and therefore all that much closer to winning the $50,000 first prize or one of the four $5,000 runners-up prizes. The nationally televised awards ceremony is to be held Nov. 11 in Toronto. Virtually from its inception in 1994, a Giller win has meant a run on the bestseller lists sometimes lasting several months.

The long list - 12 men, three women - was chosen from 95 books submitted by 38 publishers for consideration by this year's three judges - 1996 Giller-winner Margaret Atwood, former Ontario premier and current federal Liberal MP Bob Rae and Irish novelist/short-story writer Colm Toibin.

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