March 20, 2002
JURY PANEL ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2002 GILLER PRIZE

Jack Rabinovitch, founder of The Giller Prize, is pleased to announce that authors Barbara Gowdy and Thomas King, and scholar and academic Bill New will comprise The 2002 Giller Prize jury.

Barbara Gowdy was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1950. She is the author of four novels and a short story collection which have been published in twenty other countries around the world. A two-time nominee for The Giller Prize, The Governor General's Award and the Trillium Prize, Gowdy received The Marian Engel Award in 1996. Her short fiction has been published internationally in numerous magazines and quarterlies, including The North American Review, Best American Short Stories and the New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories. Barbara Gowdy lives in Toronto.

Thomas King was born in 1943 in Roseville, California. He is the author of three works of fiction, two children's books and one short story collection. His first novel, Medicine River won the Alberta Novel Award and the Josephine Miles Award/Oakland PEN Award. King's second novel, Green Grass, Running Water, was shortlisted for the 1993 Governor General's Award and won the 1994 Canadian Authors Award for Fiction. His most recent novel, Truth and Bright Water, was named one of the 25 most readable books of the year by the American Library Association. Thomas King lives in Guelph, Ontario with his partner Helen Hoy and their two youngest children.

Bill New is a native of Vancouver. He's the author of four books of poetry and two children's books, compiler of numerous anthologies, and editor of The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada (2002). A graduate of UBC and the University of Leeds, with a PhD in the English-language literatures of the Commonwealth, he is currently University Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia. In addition to serving on numerous editorial and advisory boards, he has written a dozen critical books and monographs, including A History of Canadian Literature, and several hundred articles and reviews. Bill New lives with his wife Peggy in Vancouver.

Prize History
The Giller Prize awards $25,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English. The award was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller. The Prize is now celebrating its ninth year.

Printer-friendly version of this page