TORONTO—A tearful Lynn Coady won the $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize on Tuesday night for her short story collection “Hellgoing,” calling the honour “shocking and overwhelming.”
“I almost didn’t write this because I thought, ‘No, then I will hope,’” said Edmonton-based Coady, 43, as she pulled out her acceptance speech onstage.
“I think probably the only way for me to keep it together is just to read from this page, so I’m going to hold on to these pages for dear life.”
“I don’t even like to cry in private,” she added as she grew emotional. “This is very odd for me.”
The Cape Breton, N.S., native then thanked her loved ones and her publisher House of Anansi, which hasn’t had a Giller winner in 13 years—a streak dubbed “the Anansi curse.”
She also praised businessman Jack Rabinovitch, who founded the prestigious prize 20 years ago.
“I can’t express how honoured I am to play even the smallest part in such an inspiring event,” Coady, decked out in a black Stephan Caras gown, told the glitzy, star-packed gala at Toronto’s Ritz-Carlton hotel.
“It makes me proud not just to be a Canadian writer but to be a Canadian, to live in a country where we treat our writers like movie stars.”
Coady, who is known for her comical yet compassionate approach to writing, included eight stories in “Hellgoing” with characters including a young nun and a bride-to-be.
This year’s jury members—CanLit legend Margaret Atwood, 2011 Giller winner Esi Edugyan, and American author Jonathan Lethem—praised the collection as having a “keen and sympathetic wit.”
Coady, who is also an editor and journalist, was also a Giller finalist in 2011 for “The Antagonist.” In 1998, her first novel, “Strange Heaven,” was nominated for a Governor General’s Award.
Her other books include “Mean Boy,” “Play the Monster Blind,” and “Saints of Big Harbour.” She said she’s now in a television writing program at the Canadian Film Centre.
Coady beat out titles by Toronto-based Dennis Bock, Toronto native Craig Davidson, Lisa Moore of St. John’s, and German-born Canadian Dan Vyleta.
This year’s jury members read 147 titles submitted by 61 publishers.
Atwood said they chose the winner Tuesday morning. The deliberations were “a good process” with no “blood on the floor,” she noted.
“It was a very, very rich year in Canadian writing. There were a lot of very good books published this year, so it was difficult to arrive at a 13-book long list, and then it was difficult to arrive at a five-book short list, but once we got there it wasn’t too difficult.”
“We did it in a drunken stupor,” joked Lethem onstage, riffing on the day’s headlines surrounding embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
The Giller was established in 1994 by Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller.
It awards $50,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $5,000 to each of the finalists.
The Giller can also be a career maker, with the winner often seeing a huge spike in sales—a boost often referred to as “the Giller effect.”
Rabinovitch, who hatched the idea for the prize over bar drinks with the late author Mordecai Richler in Montreal, said the anniversary had him in a sentimental mood.
CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi presided over the Giller bash, which was broadcast on CBC-TV and featured a performance from folk duo Whitehorse.
With files from The Canadian Press
