Madeleine Thien, John Irving, Rupi Kaur, Thomas King and Lawrence Hill to present at Scotiabank Giller Prize
Erin Balser | CBC | Posted: November 9, 2017 2:39 PM | Last Updated: November 16, 2017
Five authors will be presenting the finalists for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize during the gala event on Nov. 20, 2017.
- Madeleine Thien will present I Am a Truck by Michelle Winters
- John Irving will present Transit by Rachel Cusk
- Thomas King will present Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin
- Rupi Kaur will present Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
- Lawrence Hill will present Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill
Madeleine Thien won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2016 for her novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
Thien will be presenting I Am a Truck by Michelle Winters. I Am a Truck, Winters' debut novel, is about how one woman living in a small Acadian town deals with the sudden disappearance of her husband of 20 years.
John Irving, an American author who now lives in Canada, has written 14 novels. His notable works include The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay for the adaptation of The Cider House Rules in 1999.
Irving will be presenting Transit by Rachel Cusk. Transit follows a woman named Faye who, after a divorce, moves to London with her children and attempts to find connection with those she encounters every day.
Thomas King is the author of many books, including the novel Green Grass, Running Water and the memoir The Inconvenient Indian. He was named to the Order of Canada in 2004.
King will be presenting Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin, a novel about two strangers searching for lost family members in the Canadian Arctic. They find themselves unexpectedly connected as they also attempt to solve a mystery related to Sir John Franklin's Northwest Passage expedition.
Rupi Kaur is the Instagram poet sensation who has published two bestselling poetry collections: milk and honey and The Sun and Her Flowers.
Kaur will be presenting Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson. Son of a Trickster introduces us to Jared, a 16-year-old high school student who suddenly begins to have strange things happen to him.
Lawrence Hill is the author of The Book of Negroes, which won Canada Reads in 2009, and The Illegal, which won Canada Reads in 2016. He is the only author to win Canada Reads twice. Hill served on the Giller Prize jury in 2016. He will be presenting Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill.
Bellevue Square is about a woman who learns she has a doppleganger. The revelation becomes an obsession for the grounded business owner and mother, who ends up hanging around the Toronto neighbourhood of Kensington market for glimpses of her.
The 2017 shortlist was chosen by a jury comprised of Canadian writers Anita Rau Badami, André Alexis, Lynn Coady, American writer Nathan Englander and British author Richard Beard.
The winner will be announced at a Toronto gala hosted by comedian Mary Walsh on Nov. 20, 2017.
It will be broadcast on CBC-TV at 8 p.m (12:30 a.m. AT/1:00 a.m. NT) and streamed live on CBC Books.
A special radio broadcast of the gala, hosted by The Next Chapter's Shelagh Rogers and q book columnist Jael Richardson, will air on CBC Radio One. You can find all the broadcast details for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize here.