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November 2, 2000
AUTHORS MICHAEL ONDAATJE
AND DAVID ADAMS RICHARDS WIN THE 2000 GILLER PRIZE
TORONTO - At a gala dinner and award ceremony
that drew over 450 members of the publishing industry and
arts community, Michael Ondaatje and David Adams Richards
were both named as the winners of The Giller Prize, Canada's
premier literary prize for fiction. Michael Ondaatje's winning
novel, Anil's Ghost, is published by McClelland &
Stewart. David Adams Richards' novel, Mercy Among the
Children, is published by Doubleday Canada. 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. This
is the first year in the prize's seven year history that
there have been two winners. Each will receive a $25,000
cheque. A shortlist of six finalists was announced on October
4, 2000.
Those finalists were:
- Alan Cumyn for his novel Burridge Unbound, published
by McClelland & Stewart
- Elizabeth Hay for her novel A Student of Weather,
published by McClelland & Stewart
- Michael Ondaatje for his novel Anil's Ghost,
published by McClelland & Stewart
- David Adams Richards for his novel Mercy Among the
Children, published by Doubleday Canada
- Eden Robinson for her novel Monkey Beach, published
by Alfred A. Knopf Canada
- Fred Stenson for his novel The Trade, published
by Douglas & McIntyre
Selected by a distinguished jury panel, comprised
of authors Margaret Atwood, Alistair MacLeod, and Jane Urquhart,
the finalists were chosen from 62 books submitted for consideration.
Of Anil's Ghost, the jury remarked,
"Against the lush and luminous background of Sri Lanka,
a country torn by terrorism and civil war, Michael Ondaatje
sets a journey of profound discoveries. Forensic pathologist
Anil Tissera re-engages with her despoiled homeland while
attempting the dangerous task of putting a name to the skull
of an unknown man, thus naming his murderers. But there
are personal betrayals and crimes of the heart at issue
too in this richly-detailed, evocative, and many-stranded
tale."
Of David Adams Richards' novel, the jury
remarked, "In Mercy Among the Children the quests
for love, truth, and spiritual certainty are themes as old
as antiquity. Other issues such as the toxic poisoning of
the land, the survival of the casually vicious, and the
chasm between adoptees and biological parents are unsettling
in their contemporary immediacy. Set in an area of New Brunswick
labelled "the Stumps," this novel ultimately spills
across all boundaries of time and place in prose as ruggedly
beautiful as the subjects it describes."
ABOUT THE WINNERS
MICHAEL ONDAATJE was born in Sri Lanka, and came to Canada
in 1962. His published works include Coming Through Slaughter,
which won the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1976;
There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do,
which won the Governor General's Literary Award in 1980;
In the Skin of a Lion, which won the City of Toronto
Book Award and the Trillium Award, and was shortlisted for
the Governor General's Literary Award; and The English
Patient, which won The Governor General's Literary Award
and the Booker Prize and was later made into a successful
Academy Award-winning film. Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto.
DAVID ADAMS RICHARDS is an award-winning author of both
fiction and non-fiction. Lines on the Water won the
Governor General's Literary Award in 1998. He is well-known
for his Miramichi trilogy: Nights Below Station Street,
winner of the 1988 Governor General's Literary Award; Evening
Snow Will Bring Such Peace, winner of the Canadian Authors
Association Award; and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded
Down, winner of the Thomas Radall Award. His last novel
was The Bay of Love and Sorrows, published in 1998.
David Adams Richards now lives in Toronto with his wife
and their two sons.
The Giller Prize was founded by Jack Rabinovitch
in 1994 in honour of his late wife, literary journalist
Doris Giller.
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