May 11, 2000
JURY PANEL ANNOUNCED FOR
THE 2000 GILLER PRIZE
Jack Rabinovitch, founder of The Giller Prize,
is pleased to announce that authors Margaret Atwood,
Alistair MacLeod and Jane Urquhart will comprise
The 2000 Giller Prize jury.
Margaret Atwood's work has been published
around the world and won many awards, including the Governor
General's Award, the Trillium Book Award, the Sunday Times
Award for Literary Excellence in the U.K., the National
Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature in the U.S., and
the prestigious Le Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres in France. Alias Grace, her ninth novel,
won The Giller Prize, and the Premio Mondello in Italy,
and was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize, the Governor
General's Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction,
the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Arthur
Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel. Margaret Atwood lives
in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
As Alice Munro did in the inaugural year
of the prize, Margaret Atwood has graciously removed The
Blind Assassin, her upcoming novel, from consideration
in order to sit on this year's jury.
Alistair MacLeod was born in North
Battleford, Saskatchewan, and raised in Cape Breton, Nova
Scotia. In his early years, to finance his education, he
worked as a logger, miner, and fisherman, and writes vividly
and sympathetically about such work. Dr. MacLeod is a professor
of English at the University of Windsor, Ontario. Working
alongside W.O. Mitchell, he was also a teacher to generations
of writers at the Banff Centre. His novel, No Great Mischief,
which has been on national bestseller lists since its publication,
recently won the 1999 - 2000 Trillium Book Award. Dr. MacLeod
lives with his wife, Anita, in Windsor, Ontario.
Jane Urquhart's fiction has earned
her many awards and honours, including the Trillium Book
Award, the Marian Engel Award, Le prix de meilleur livre
étranger (Best Foreign Book Award) in France, and for her
bestselling novel Away, a place on the shortlist
for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award. Her fourth novel, The Underpainter, won the
1997 Governor General's Award. She has been named a Chevalier
dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France and has received
several honourary doctorates from Canadian universities.
In 1997 she held the Presidential Writer-in-Residence Fellowship
at the University of Toronto. Jane Urquhart lives in southwestern
Ontario.
Dates Confirmed
This year, the shortlist is scheduled to be announced at
a press conference in Toronto on Wednesday, October 2. The
winner will be announced at a black-tie dinner and awards
ceremony at Toronto's Four Seasons Hotel on Thursday, November
2, 2000.
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.
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