Giller Prize longlist announced

For 6 months, I’ve been adopting an increasingly large and innovative number of reading positions in order to physically sustain my reading habits, and do justice to the 161 novels and story collections submitted to the Scotiabank Giller Prize. It’s been a long, wild, illuminating, exhausting ride and today the longlist of 12 is announced.

We, the 5 judges, are pretty excited by the eccentric list we’ve drawn up; it’s heartfelt, reflects our collective and individual passions and pays no heed to conformity for conformity’s sake. There are books that it pained us to leave off the list; there’s nothing easy about narrowing 161 to 12. To all 161 authors, thanks – how honoured I am to have read your work and got to know books I’d have not known otherwise.