Madeleine Thien Tops Year of Honours with Scotiabank Giller Prize

Every once in a while a book comes along that captures readers' and juries' imaginations so completely that it becomes the book of that year. After last night, it's impossible to deny that 2016 belongs to Madeleine Thien's Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Alfred A. Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada).

The rich and sprawling multi-generational novel, set in China against a backdrop of Mao's Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and the legacy of the 20th century, won the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize last night. Do Not Say We Have Nothing already scooped the Governor General's Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in England. To say it's been a hit is an understatement, but it comes as no surprise to Thien's longtime readers. Though Thien is only in her forties, she has been a rising star from her university days. Her first book, a collection of short fiction called Simple Recipes won the City of Vancouver Book Award, and her first novel, Certainty, won the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Dogs at the Perimeter, her haunting second novel about the Cambodian genocide, was shortlisted for multiple prizes and won the Frankfurt Book Fair's de:LiBeraturpreis, as well as being translated into nine languages. 

It was a very strong year for the Giller Prize, with six very different but fascinating novels nominated, including Thien's. For more information about all the shortlisted authors and their books, check out the Giller Prize website. The prize, which is the largest fiction award in Canada, carries a $100,000 purse for the winner (making it even more lucrative than the Man Booker Prize), as well as $10,000 to each finalist. 2016 marks the 23rd time the prize has been presented.

The jury, consisting of Lawrence Hill (jury chair), Samantha Harvey, Jeet Heer, Alan Warner, and Kathleen Winter had this to say about Do Not Say We Have Nothing: "[the book] entranced the jurors with its detailed, layered, complex drama of classical musicians and their loved ones trying to survive two monstrous insults to their humanity: Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in mid-twentieth century China and the Tiananmen Square massacre of protestors in Beijing in 1989. Do Not Say We Have Nothing addresses some of the timeless questions of literature: who do we love, and how do the love of art, of others and ourselves sustain us individually and collectively in the face of genocide? A beautiful homage to music and to the human spirit, Do Not Say We Have Nothing is both sad and uplifting in its dramatization of human loss and resilience in China and in Canada."

Congratulations to Madeleine Thien!