Anne Michaels accepts the Giller Prize for her book Held at a ceremony in Toronto, on Nov. 18.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
A mystery that begins with an injured man on a First World War battlefield, written by a former Toronto poet laureate, has won the 2024 Giller Prize.
In a gala ceremony at Park Hyatt Toronto on Monday, Anne Michaels claimed Canada’s richest award for fiction, worth $100,000. The 66-year-old was recognized for the novel Held, which had also been shortlisted for prestigious London-based Booker Prize.
The novel spans multiple generations, takes place in England, France and Estonia, and touches on particle physics, spirit photography and the effects of war. The publisher is McClelland & Stewart. Ms. Michaels has been shortlisted for the Giller Prize twice previously.
“Everything I write is a form of witness,” Ms. Michaels began her acceptance speech. “Against war, indifference against amnesia of every sort. From when do we begin to count the dead? I’ve asked that question all my writing life and I’ve been seeking in the darkest moments in history the specific hope, the hope that it is inevitable and unassailable – hope that one can trust with one’s life, the only hope worth offering a reader.”
The four runners-up – Éric Chacour for What I Know About You, Anne Fleming for Curiosities, Conor Kerr for Prairie Edge and Deepa Rajagopalan for Peacocks of Instagram – each took home $10,000.
The jury cited Held as “a novel that floats, a beguiling association of memories, projections, and haunted instances through which the very notion of our mortality, of our resilience and desires, is interrogated in passages as impactful as they can be hypnotic.”
Anne Michaels on her Booker and Giller-nominated novel Held: ‘I want to have the reader close to me’
The evening’s tension was not limited to the speculation over the winning book and author. The possibility of a political protest similar to the one that disrupted last year’s live television broadcast was a concern to organizers who this year increased security and tape-delayed the CBC broadcast and stream on CBC Gem.
The location of this gala was not revealed to guests until the day of the event. In a break from tradition, the winner was announced before dinner, not after.
A year ago, pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested after their demonstration against the Giller Foundation for its ties with lead sponsor Bank of Nova Scotia, linked to Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Since then, Scotiabank subsidiary 1832 Asset Management has been gradually divesting its stake in Elbit. Scotiabank, while still a Giller sponsor, had its name dropped from the prize.
On Monday, CanLit Responds, activists affiliated with No Arms in the Arts, demonstrated outside the Toronto Park Hyatt. A few dozen protesters yelled “shame” at cars pulling into a secured driveway. They also staged what they called a “Boycott Giller” counter-gala.
This summer, Indian novelist Megha Majumdar and Ethiopian American author Dinaw Mengestu resigned from the Giller jury panel over the organization’s refusal to cut ties with Scotiabank, leaving three Canadian judges, author Kevin Chong, author-broadcaster Noah Richler (jury chair) and singer-songwriter Molly Johnson, to determine the winner.
More than 100 books were submitted for the prize. Dozens of authors signed a letter distancing themselves from the Giller Prize, including past winners Omar El Akkad, David Bergen and Sarah Bernstein, who a year ago accepted the Giller and the prize money that went with it for her novel Study for Obedience.
Ms. Michaels is best known for her 1996 novel Fugitive Pieces, which was adapted for the screen in 2007. She declined to speak to assembled media, but her speech seemingly referred obliquely to authors protesting the Giller Foundation.
“We are not alone,” she said. “I write in solidarity with the moral purpose of every writer bearing witness. I write because the dead can read.”
The Giller Prize was founded in 1994 by businessman Jack Rabinovitch to honour the memory of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller. Mr. Rabinovitch died in 2017. Despite the controversy associated with the Gillers, the glitzy award dinner is still a significant event on the Canadian publishing industry calendar.
Monday’s guests included former Ontario premier and current Canadian ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae, Senator Pamela Wallin, TVO’s Steve Paikin, author John Irving, former Toronto mayor John Tory, soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, CBC Radio’s Elamin Abdelmahmoud and MP Seamus O’Regan.
Past Giller winners André Alexis, Linden MacIntyre, Ian Williams and Dr. Vincent Lam also attended an evening that began with cocktails, preceding a presentation of videos on each of the finalists and the divulgement of the winning author.
After, guests feasted on roasted squash salad, prime tenderloin, garlic parmesan hasselback potatoes, broccolini, king oyster mushroom and heirloom carrots, washed down by a selection of merlot, riesling and cabernet sauvignon.
The winner’s career will be boosted significantly. Since 2006, according to the Giller Foundation, the average year-to-year spike in sales for a winning title is more than five-fold. The surge is known in the publishing industry as the Giller Effect.
The literary awards season continues on Tuesday when the Writers’ Trust of Canada presents seven prizes and hands out more than $330,000 to Canadian writers at the annual Writers’ Trust Awards.