ST. JOHN'S, Sept. 18, 2017 /CNW/ - The Scotiabank Giller Prize is pleased to announce its longlist for this year's award. The 2016 prize winner, Madeleine Thien, announced the longlist titles during a ceremony at The Rooms in St. John's, NL. The twelve titles were chosen from a field of 112 books submitted by 73 publisher imprints from across Canada.

The longlist for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize is:

• David Chariandy for his novel Brother, published by McClelland & Stewart
• Rachel Cusk for her novel Transit, published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• David Demchuk for his novel The Bone Mother, published by ChiZine Publications
• Joel Thomas Hynes for his novel We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night, published by HarperPerennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Andrée A. Michaud for her novel Boundary, published by Biblioasis International Translation Series, translated by Donald Winkler
• Josip Novakovich for his story collection Tumbleweed, published by Esplanade Books/Véhicule Press
• Ed O'Loughlin for his novel Minds of Winter, published by House of Anansi Press
• Zoey Leigh Peterson for her novel Next Year, For Sure, published by Doubleday Canada
• Michael Redhill for his novel Bellevue Square, published by Doubleday Canada
• Eden Robinson for her novel Son of a Trickster, published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada
• Deborah Willis for her story collection The Dark and other Love Stories, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada
• Michelle Winters for her novel I am a Truck, published by Invisible Publishing

The longlist was selected by an esteemed five-member jury panel: Canadian writers Anita Rau Badami (Jury Chair), André Alexis, Lynn Coady, along with British writer Richard Beard and American writer Nathan Englander.

Of the longlist, the jury wrote:

"Twenty seventeen was an intriguing year for Canadian fiction. As with any year, there were trends, themes that ran through any number of books: the plight of the marginalized, the ongoing influence of history on the present, the way it feels to grow up in our country, the way the world looks to the psychologically damaged. But 2017 was also a year of outliers, of books that were eccentric, challenging or thrillingly strange, books that took us to amusing or disturbing places. In fact, you could say that the exceptional was one of 2017's trends. It gave the impression of a world in transition: searching inward as much as outward, wary but engaged."

This year's shortlist will be announced at a press event to be held at the Scotiabank Centre in Toronto on Monday, October 2.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize is delighted to present a series of special readings featuring this year's shortlisted authors, taking place in Calgary on October 12, Vancouver on October 16, Halifax on October 26, Ottawa on November 1, Toronto on November 6 and London, U.K. on November 9.  Between the Pages: An Evening with the Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalists will take you inside the minds and creative lives of the writers on the 2017 shortlist. For venue and ticket information, please visit:
www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/news-events/events-and-important-dates/

The 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize will air on Mon. Nov. 20, on CBC at 8 p.m. (12 AT/12:30 NT), CBC Radio One at 8 p.m. (9 AT/9:30 NT) and will be livestreamed at CBCBooks.ca.

Beginning in 2017, Audible.ca will be the exclusive audiobook sponsor of the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

About the Prize

The Scotiabank Giller Prize, founded in 1994, highlights the very best in Canadian fiction year after year. The prize awards $100,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English, and $10,000 to each of the finalists. The award is named in honour of the late literary journalist Doris Giller by her husband, the late Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch, who passed away in August 2017.

About Scotiabank

Scotiabank is Canada's international bank and a leading financial services provider in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America, and Asia-Pacific. We are dedicated to helping our 24 million customers become better off through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With a team of more than 88,000 employees and assets of over $906 billion (as at July 31, 2017), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto (TSX: BNS) and New York Exchanges (NYSE: BNS). For more information, please visit www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter @ScotiabankViews.

About CBC/Radio-Canada

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. We are Canada's trusted source of news, information and Canadian entertainment. Deeply rooted in communities all across the country, CBC/Radio-Canada offers diverse content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages. We also provide international news and information from a uniquely Canadian perspective. In 2017, CBC/Radio-Canada will be at the heart of the celebrations and conversations with special 2017-themed multiplatform programming and events across Canada.

SOURCE Scotiabank