Giller Prize 2020 finalists answer five questions about the tour, the prize and little secrets

Ahead of Monday night’s gala ceremony in Toronto where the winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize will be announced and the $100,000 prize awarded, we wanted to give readers a chance to get to know the finalists a little better. Since the short list was announced, the five writers have been on a tour across Canada and to New York. We asked each of these Canadian authors five questions about the tour, the prize and little secrets.

Kim Fu, “Little Known Monsters of the 21st Century”

1. You’ve been, with the other writers, on an international tour. What have the best and worst things been about that tour?

The best thing has been getting to spend time with the other finalists, all writers whose work I admire and witty, lovely people. The worst thing has been my travel schedule — I had to dovetail the tour with other existing commitments, so it’s been a lot of early morning flights back and forth across the continent, flying every day. I try to tell myself that’s what rock stars do.

2. How did you find out about making the short list?

During the announcement, I was in Montreal, doing an interview with Le Devoir about the French translation of one of my earlier novels. I expected my translator, Annie Goulet, to have to tell me I didn’t make the short list. I was prepared to be very gracious about it. When she interrupted to tell me that I had, I just sat there in stunned silence, too surprised to say anything. The delighted journalist said, “This is great. Now I have a lede.”

3. There’s been a lot said about prize culture and how it shapes work in this country. What role do prizes play, do you think?

I personally could not write, edit or curate my ideas with the goal of winning prizes. I don’t even know what that would mean. I don’t know what a “prizewinning book” looks like. I love that, for example, the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, the Atwood Gibson prize and the Giller short lists had so little overlap this year, and that they’re such eclectic, bold lists that feature a lot of indie publishers and first-time nominees. I would prefer a culture that spreads more attention to more writers, that encourages people to read broadly and invite surprise, rather than just a few high-powered spotlights on pre-existing celebrity writers. But prizes can be one part of a functional artistic economy. (Of course, that’s easy for me to say, this year!)

4. How would winning make a difference to you?

It buys time to write. That’s the greatest gift. But I would also feel so grateful that I could honour the work and support of all the people and communities that helped me get here. I’d have to take a lot of people out for dinner.

5. Are there any secret things that you put in this work in order to keep yourself amused?

Not consciously, but everything is initially just to amuse myself. It’s a wonder that any of it is eventually amusing to someone else.

Rawi Hage, “Stray Dogs”

1. The best thing is meeting a wonderful group of writers and organizers. The worst is dealing with too much joy.

2. My publisher watched the announcement and phoned me.

3. I think many countries have literary prizes, which are a way to focus attention on the local literary culture. They also help to save a few writers from financial ruin.

4. It’s an acknowledgment by my peers and would bring a new readership to my work.

5. I used to have a fear of dogs. Now I’m grateful for their literary contributions.

Tsering Yangzom Lama, “We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies”

1. One of the many privileges of this tour has been to see so many parts of Canada that some of us haven’t visited before. It was my first time visiting Winnipeg, Calgary and Halifax, for instance. After several years of staying mostly in one place, I have also just enjoyed the feeling of newness: encountering new sights, new experiences. Another highlight has been meeting and befriending my fellow finalists, who are not just brilliant writers but such kind, funny and interesting people.

2. I was in Toronto for the writers’ festival at the time. I put on the livestream while I was preparing to go to the gym. When I get nervous, I tend to like to multi-task. And I also figured I would go and work off some energy whichever way the short list went. Needless to say, it was an emotional time on the treadmill.

3. The reason prizes are important is because they show that some domain of creative work matters. With all their flaws, prizes matter because they insist on valuing something that could easily remain undervalued to the detriment of the society we live in.

4. I think we’ve already won by making it on the short list and so it’s hard to imagine receiving any more. If the prize were to land on my lap, perhaps I would be able to make more time for writing in the future.

5. There are some things in the work that are more hidden than others, but for any careful, sensitive reader, there are secrets of your own to discover. In literature, what’s most interesting are the things that even writers don’t know they’ve placed inside the text. These are the details that make it continuously rewarding to return to Kafka or Virginia Woolf. The things that were mysteries even to them.

Suzette Mayr, “The Sleeping Car Porter”

1. Best: It has been so, so great getting to know the other writers — they’re all such lovely people and they have written such beautiful work. I hear something new every time they read from their shortlisted books. I’m going to miss hanging around with them.

Worst: As soon as I found I was shortlisted, I promptly broke out in shingles on my right eye, I think from the stress of never having been nominated for a prize that huge before. I don’t recommend shingles. There’s a quadrant of my head where my hair still hurts every time I comb it.

2. I didn’t want to know and so I deliberately avoided watching the short list announcement. I got home from walking the dog, though, and my partner was watching the announcement on her iPad. I watched it with her. We had a very alcoholic, celebratory drink right after, and I had what I thought was a particularly stabby, hangover headache at 7 p.m. that night. Turned out it was the beginning of the nerve pain from the shingles.

3. Prizes are good for exposure.

4. My impostor syndrome as a writer would finally go away.

5. One of the characters in the book is a little girl named Esme and she carries around a little porcelain horse named Rocky with her throughout the book. My friend Jim Hume had a little porcelain horse named Rocky when he was a kid. I thought it was so adorable I wrote it into the book.

Noor Naga, “If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English”

1. The best thing has been spending time with the other authors, getting to know their coffee orders and sleeping habits and quirks. The worst thing has been the jet lag.

2. I watched the announcement on a laptop from bed. It was more nerve-racking than I anticipated.

3. I think most books reach new readers by word-of-mouth. A prize has a very big mouth.

4. It would free me to take more time off from teaching so I can focus on the next project.

5. Apart from naming a character after myself and some truly fanciful footnotes, no.

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