Entertainment

Emma Donoghue, Madeleine Thien shortlisted for $100K Giller Prize

Debut authors and established writers alike are in the running for Canada's $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, which unveiled a short list of six contenders in Toronto on Monday.

CBC's Steve Patterson to host Nov. 7 prize gala

Six writers have made the shortlist for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize - two are debut novelists and all are first-time finalists for the $100,000 award. (CBC Books)

Debut authors and established writers alike are in the running for Canada's $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, which unveiled a short list of six contenders in Toronto on Monday. 

The annual prize toasts the past year's best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English, with the author receiving $100,000 and $10,000 going to each remaining finalist.

This year's jury — Lawrence Hill, Kathleen Winter, Jeet Heer, Samantha Harvey and Alan Warner —  unveiled a long list of a dozen names chosen from more than 160 submissions earlier this month. On Monday, they whittled down the list to:

Organizers also announced that CBC's Steve Patterson will host this year's gala, set for Nov. 7 in Toronto. The ceremony will air on CBC and be live-streamed at CBCBooks.ca at 9 p.m. (10 p.m. AT/10:30 p.m. NT).

The Giller was established in 1994 by businessman Jack Rabinovitch in memory of his wife, literary journalist Doris Giller. Past winners have included Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, Joseph Boyden, Alice Munro, M.G. Vasanji and, most recently, André Alexis in 2015.