My Crystal Ball is Defective

by Tricia Dower

Two out of five. That’s all I got right trying to guess the Giller Prize short list. Ondaatje and York. Maybe I should have read more than one book.

The list was announced on Tuesday: Elizabeth Hay for Late Nights on Air, Michael Ondaatje for Divisadero, Daniel Poliquin for A Secret Between Us (translated by Donald Winkler), M. G. Vassanji for The Assassin’s Song, and Alissa York for Effigy.

Except for York, the jury went with age and experience, and no small or medium-sized press made the cut. Ondaatje has won the Giller once and Vassanji twice. (Did you know his first name is Moyez?) Hay has been short-listed before. Although it’s Poliquin’s first nomination, he’s won awards for his French language books and is a member of the Order of Canada. There’s little geographic spread represented by the short list. Everyone lives in either Ottawa or Toronto. And no short story collection! (To add insult to injury, in an October 1 Globe and Mail article, Vassanji says, “I'll write short stories if I'm totally desperate.”)

I was surprised the jury chose another translation, as there was much moaning and groaning over the two on last year’s short list. The Giller is awarded for an English language book and although a translation, in this case from French to English, qualifies, it’s a filtered version of the original. If it wins, do author and translator share the $40,000 prize equally? (I should properly be calling it the Scotiabank Giller Prize, but it lacks a certain grace, as does the Save-On-Foods Arena here in Victoria.)

I won’t even attempt to postulate on the winner. If you’re into it, a Guess the Giller contest open to the public is being run through 20 library systems across Canada and some Scotiabank branches. I reckon you have better odds of winning the CWC’s Hallowe’en Haiku contest. Give it a go!

The Final Giller Five, clockwise from upper left: York, Hay (credit John W. MacDonald), Poliquin, Vassanji (credit Philip Cheung for The Globe and Mail), and Ondaatje.