Wednesday, November 11, 2009


Linden MacIntyre Wins the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize - Canada's Premier Prize for Fiction Names a Winner -
TORONTO, Nov. 10

Linden MacIntyre has been named the 2009 winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel The Bishop's Man, published by Random House Canada. The announcement was made live on Bravo! and BookTelevision at a black-tie dinner and award ceremony that drew nearly 500 members of the publishing, media and arts commupremieres on CTV tomorrow - Wednesday, November 11 at 10 a.m. ET and is availablenities.

The largest annual prize for fiction in the country, the Scotiabank Giller Prize 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. A shortlist of five authors and their books was announced on October 6, 2009.
Those finalists were:
- Kim Echlin for her novel The Disappeared, published by Hamish
Hamilton Canada

- Annabel Lyon for her novel The Golden Mean, published by Random House
Canada

- Linden MacIntyre for his novel The Bishop's Man, published by Random
House Canada

- Colin McAdam for his novel Fall, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada

- Anne Michaels for her novel The Winter Vault, published by McClelland
& Stewart

The shortlist and ultimate winner was selected by an esteemed jury panel made up of celebrated American novelist and short story writer Russell Banks, acclaimed UK author and journalist Victoria Glendinning, and distinguished professor and award-winning author Alistair MacLeod. The shortlist was chosen from 96 books submitted for consideration by 39 publishing houses from every region of the country.

Of the winning book, the jury remarked:
"The Bishop's Man centres on a sensitive topic - the sexual abuses perpetrated by Catholic priests on the innocent children in their care. Father Duncan, the first person narrator, has been his bishop's dutiful enforcer, employed to check the excesses of priests and, crucially, to suppress the evidence. But as events veer out of control, he is forced into painful self-knowledge as family, community and friendship are torn apart under the strain of suspicion, obsession and guilt. A brave novel, conceived and written with impressive delicacy and understanding."

Linden MacIntyre is the co-host of The Fifth Estate, CBC Television's flagship investigative affairs program. He is the winner of nine Gemini Awards for broadcast journalism. MacIntyre's most recent book, a boyhood memoir called Causeway: A Passage from Innocence won both the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-Fiction.

During tonight's award ceremony, a roster of celebrity presenters - 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Joseph Boyden, FLASHPOINT star Hugh Dillon, author Camilla Gibb, Twilight and Barney's Version co-star Rachelle Lefevre, and CTV investigative and legal journalist Paula Todd - introduced video profiles of the shortlisted authors, and presented each of them with a leather bound copy of their book.

No comments: