The 2001 Giller Prize - News
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November 6, 2001
AUTHOR RICHARD B. WRIGHT WINS THE 2001 GILLER
PRIZE
Canada's Premier Prize for Fiction Names a Winner
TORONTO - At a gala dinner and award ceremony that
drew over 450 members of the publishing, media and arts communities,
Richard B. Wright was named the 2001 winner of The Giller Prize,
Canada's premier literary prize for fiction. Richard B. Wright's
winning novel, Clara Callan, is a Phyllis Bruce Book, published
by HarperFlamingoCanada. The largest annual prize for fiction
in the country, The Giller Prize awards $25,000 each year to the
author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published
in English.
A shortlist of six finalists was announced on October
3, 2001. Those finalists were:
- Sandra Birdsell for her novel The Russländer, published
by McClelland & Stewart
- Michael Crummey for his novel River Thieves, published
by Doubleday Canada
- Michael Redhill for his novel Martin Sloane, published
by Doubleday Canada
- Timothy Taylor for his novel Stanley Park, published
by Alfred A. Knopf Canada
- Jane Urquhart for her novel The Stone Carvers, published
by McClelland & Stewart
- Richard B. Wright for his novel Clara Callan, a Phyllis
Bruce Book/published by HarperFlamingoCanada
More Info
on Finalists
Selected by a distinguished jury panel, comprised
of authors David Adams Richards and Joan Clark, and journalist Robert
Fulford, the finalists were chosen from 78 books submitted for consideration.
Of the winning book, the jury remarked, "Clara
Callan illumines, by way of a diary and letters, the inner life
of an Ontario village school teacher of the 1930's when "spinster"
and "respectable" meant constricted emotions and a glum existence.
In this atmosphere Clara enacts her private drama of doomed adulterous
love and single motherhood with stoic heroism. Running parallel
with and counterpointing Clara's life is Nora's - she is the sister
who got away. An understated, graceful writer who never makes a
false step, Richard B.Wright is a master at revealing the small
dramas that unfold in what might appear to others as an unremarkable
life. In Clara Callan he has achieved an accomplished and utterly
convincing novel."
ABOUT THE WINNER
Clara Callan is Richard B. Wright's ninth
novel. An earlier work, The Age of Longing, was nominated
for both The Giller Prize and a Governor General's Award. He is
the author of seven other novels, including The Weekend Man,
Tourists, Sunset Manor and In the Middle of A Life, the
last of which won the City of Toronto Book Award and the Faber Award.
Wright has also published a children's book, One John A Too Many.
His work has been published in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., to
outstanding reviews. Wright lives in St. Catharines, Ontario with
his wife, Phyllis.
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