Scotiabank Giller Prize announces 2020 jury and opens the prize to graphic novels for 1st time
Mark Sakamoto, Eden Robinson, David Chariandy, Tom Rachman and Claire Armitstead will judge the $100,000 prize
Mark Sakamoto, nonfiction writer and past Canada Reads winner, will chair the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize jury.
The five-person panel also includes Canadian novelists Eden Robinson, David Chariandy and Tom Rachman, as well as British critic Claire Armitstead.
The Scotiabank Giller Prize is the richest prize in Canadian literature, annually awarding $100,000 to the year's best work of fiction.
This year, the prize is accepting graphic novels among its submissions for the first time.
Sakamoto is the author of the bestselling memoir Forgiveness: A Gift from My Grandparents. The book follows his maternal grandfather through capture and imprisonment as a prisoner of war in Japan during the Second World War — all while his paternal grandmother and her Japanese-Canadian family are interned by their own government in Alberta.
Forgiveness won Canada Reads in 2018, when it was defended by Jeanne Beker.
Robinson has twice been nominated for the Giller Prize — in 2000 for Monkey Beach and in 2017 for Son of a Trickster. Son of a Trickster is currently on the Canada Reads 2020 longlist.
The Haisla/Heiltsuk writer's latest is the novel Trickster Drift, which won the 2019 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
Chariandy has been longlisted for the Giller Prize for both his novels, Soucouyant in 2007 and Brother in 2017.
The B.C. writer was awarded the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction in 2019, an anonymously judged literary award administered by Yale University worth $165,000 U.S. (approx. $218,790 Cdn).
Rachman is a Canadian-British writer whose most recent book is the historical novel The Italian Teacher, which was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award.
He's published four works of fiction, including The Imperfectionists and The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.
Armitstead is the associate editor, culture for the Guardian. She also hosts the publication's weekly books podcast.
The 2020 longlist will be announced in September, followed by the shortlist in October and the winner in November.
The 2019 Giller Prize winner was Reproduction by Ian Williams.
Other past Past Giller Prize winners include Esi Edugyan for Washington Black. Michael Redhill for Bellevue Square, Margaret Atwood for Alias Grace, Mordecai Richler for Barney's Version, Alice Munro for Runaway, André Alexis for Fifteen Dogs and Madeleine Thien for Do Not Say We Have Nothing.