TORONTO - Canada's most lucrative literary award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, will be handed out Tuesday night during a televised black-tie gala at a Toronto hotel.
The five short-listers up for the $50,000 prize are Kim Echlin, Annabel Lyon, Linden MacIntyre, Colin McAdam and Anne Michaels. The runners-up all receive $5,000.
The Canadian Press conducted email interviews with the finalists, asking about favourite novels, ebooks and what outfit they've picked out for the big night.
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Kim Echlin, nominated for "The Disappeared":
What's your best one-line synopsis of your novel?
A story of love and loss set against the Cambodian genocide.
What book do you absolutely love and wish you wrote yourself -- and why?
I have read and re-read Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." I admire how he blends storytelling with politics and philosophy and his deep knowledge of the history of the novel. What do you plan to wear to the awards? I am wearing a black dress with a Victorian cut steel buckle designed by a friend, Lena Tinits at Wardrobe Designer.
If you could give your book to one person, and know they'd get back to you with a personal review, who would it be and why?
I would give it to the woman in the market, to whom it is dedicated. I would like her to know that risking telling her story to a stranger made a difference.
Do you currently have, or are you lusting after, an ebook reader like the Kindle?
Yes, I am looking forward to having an ebook ... I think it will be terrific for research and travel.
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Annabel Lyon, nominated for "The Golden Mean":
What's your best one-line synopsis of your novel?
The seven-year relationship between Aristotle and the teenaged Alexander, before he was Great.
What book do you absolutely love and wish you wrote yourself -- and why?
Any short fiction collection by Lorrie Moore, Joy Williams, Alice Munro, Mary Robison, George Saunders, William Trevor, Denis Johnson. Short stories give me my greatest reading pleasure.
What do you plan to wear to the awards?
Don't know yet -- hopefully something vintage. I'd love to rent something, because it would be like getting a book from the library and then giving it back for others to enjoy.
If you could give your book to one person, and know that they'd get back to you with a personal review, who would it be and why?
Aristotle. He better than anyone could tell me everything I got wrong.
Do you currently have, or are you lusting after, an ebook reader like the Kindle?
No. I like bookstores and going to bookstores and browsing and picking books up and putting them down and carrying them home in a bag, and needing bookmarks, and losing my page and finding it again, and the feel of pages, and the sound of pages turning, and and and ...
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Linden MacIntyre, nominated for "The Bishop's Man":
What's your best one-line synopsis of your novel?
Man of God discovers that the consequences of a cover-up can be as dire as the consequences of a crime.
What book do you absolutely love and wish you wrote yourself -- and why?
"Amongst Women" by John McGahern for his disciplined clarity in exposing complex relationships between a dour man and his children.
What do you plan to wear to the awards?
The mandatory tux.
If you could give your book to one person, and know that they'd get back to you with a personal review, who would it be and why?
The late Rev. Roderick MacSween, an iconic university prof and poet whom I tried vainly to impress.
Do you currently have, or are you lusting after, an ebook reader like the Kindle?
Don't have one but am moderately interested in its potential for reading newspapers.
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Colin McAdam, nominated for "Fall":
What's your best one-line synopsis of your novel?
Two roommates at a boarding school -- one of them a bookish Canadian creep, the other an ardent and inarticulate American -- fall in love with the same girl, who goes missing during their final year of high school.
What book do you absolutely love and wish you wrote yourself -- and why?
I love scores of books, and don't really know that feeling of wishing I'd written someone else's work. I just wish I had their royalties.
What do you plan to wear to the awards?
It's a black-tie dinner.
If you could give your book to one person, and know that they'd get back to you with a personal review, who would it be and why?
Anyone, although they could keep their reviews to themselves. The thing I like about published books is the way they land on the laps of strangers. There's a private connection, good or bad, that gets ruined when it's put into words.
Do you currently have, or are you lusting after, an ebook reader like the Kindle?
I don't have one, so yeah, I'm lusting.
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Anne Michaels, nominated for "The Winter Vault":
What's your best one-line synopsis of your novel?
An argument for hope, exploring three historical events and their consequences, and following the intimate life of a marriage -- what love makes us capable of and incapable of.
What book do you absolutely love and wish you wrote yourself -- and why?
Though I do not wish to have written it myself, since its beauty was drawn from a profound well of grief, I hold dear this book for its immeasurable depth of love and the mastery of its form: John Berger's "To the Wedding."
What do you plan to wear to the awards?
Black tie without the tie.
If you could give your book to one person, and know that they'd get back to you with a personal review, who would it be and why?
Tom Waits, because I'd love him to sing the songs of the Stray Dogs.
Do you currently have, or are you lusting after, an ebook reader like the Kindle?
Nothing, ever, can replace the feel of paper in the hand ... but it would be useful to be able to read in the dark.
