TORONTO — Toronto poet-novelist Anne Michaels appealed for “unity” in Canada’s arts community on Monday night as she accepted the Giller Prize, an award boycotted by several prominent Canadian authors over its sponsors’ ties to Israel.
Michaels won the $100,000 fiction prize for her novel “Held,” a multigenerational look at war and trauma spanning more than a century. The jury cited the novel as an impactful and hypnotic exploration of mortality, resilience and desires.
In her speech, Michaels called the growth of Canadian literature in recent decades “one phenomenal assertion.”
“We need unity, not just with one community, but among all the arts – to forge practical alliances,” she said, a line met with some of the loudest applause of the night from the crowd assembled in a Toronto hotel ballroom.
The ceremony went off without any disruptions after last year’s gala was met by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, fuelling a boycott of the prominent award and sending a shockwave through Canada’s literary scene.
Demonstrators, including dozens of Canadian authors who pulled their books from prize contention this year, have called on the Giller Foundation to drop sponsors with ties to Israel, including Scotiabank due to its stake in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
Instead of airing live on CBC as in previous years, the ceremony was pre-taped.
Speakers avoided any specific mention of the protests, though some appeared to allude to them. Ian Williams, the 2019 Giller winner and the night’s first presenter, said the world had “changed significantly” since the prize was handed out last year.
“We’re all to various degrees, tense, confused, hurt, even disappointed with each other. But what hasn’t changed is the Giller’s commitment to support and promote Canadian fiction,” he said.
Outside the glitzy Park Hyatt hotel in downtown Toronto, demonstrators set up what they billed as a counter gala. They rolled out a red carpet and dressed in fancy gala-worthy outfits while they listened to readings of works by Palestinian authors.
Noor Naga, a former Giller prize nominee and organizer with CanLit Responds, said the group was gathered to protest the "art-washing of ongoing Palestinian genocide."
"Our ability to practice our craft with total freedom and safety is a luxury not afforded to all of us and this privilege comes with responsibilities," Naga said.
"At the very least we have an obligation to examine the material circumstances under which our work is produced, consumed and celebrated."
CanLit Responds — working as part of a campaign called No Arms in the Arts — has also directed its protest at other award funders. That includes Indigo for its CEO's charity that supports Israeli Defense Force officers from abroad, as well as the Azrieli Foundation, in part for its connection to Israeli real estate company Azrieli Group, which has a stake in Bank Leumi.
The United Nations Human Rights Office has previously listed Bank Leumi among businesses involved in activities relating to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Security was tight around Monday night's gala and police officers helped shepherd cars through the protest line set up outside the hotel.
Inside, the private, annual black-tie affair attracted some prominent attendees including former mayor John Tory, Indigo CEO Heather Reisman and soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee.
Giller executive director Elana Rabinovitch, whose late father founded the award some 30 years ago to honour his deceased wife, said it had been a year of "change, division and instability in the arts."
"I remain emboldened by my father Jack's singular vision for creating this prize for the recognition and celebration of Canadian fiction," she said at the gala before announcing the winner.
"It is and will always be about the author's voices, and nothing more."
Rabinovitch and Michaels, through their publicists, both declined interview requests Monday night at the gala.
"Held," which was also nominated for this year's Booker Prize, is only Michaels' third novel in a decades-long career. Her first, "Fugitive Pieces," came out in 1996, a full decade after her debut poetry collection "The Weight of Oranges."
"Fugitive Pieces" was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, won the Trillium Book Award, as well as the award now known as the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the U.K.'s Women's Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, "The Winter Vault," was published in 2009 and made the Giller short list that year.
"Held" is told through non-linear sections that unfurl each piece of a family's story.
Each generation asks iterations of the same questions, and each brings the reader closer to an answer. How do we understand the world? How do we remember? How do we console ourselves and each other?
Michaels alluded to many of those questions and themes in her speech on Monday night.
"Everything I write is a form of witness -- against war, indifference, against amnesia of every sort. From when do we begin to count the dead?" she asked.
"I've asked that question all my writing life and I've been seeking in the darkest moments in history a specific hope, a hope that is inevitable, unassailable, a hope that one can trust with one's life. The only hope worth offering a reader."
The gala and its protest followed renewed criticism from former winner Madeleine Thien, who posted a letter on X over the weekend that asked prize organizers to remove her name, image and work from its website and promotional material over the controversy.
Addressed to the Giller foundation’s board of directors and advisory council, Thien said winning in 2016 for "Do Not Say We Have Nothing" was one of the "great happinesses of my life," and began a long association with the Giller that included appearances at televised galas and literary events.
Thien said all that ends now, and her relationship with Rabinovitch has soured. She said the executive director initially asked for her help to raise money for this year's purse, but later publicly affirmed the partnership with Scotiabank instead.
Scotiabank and Indigo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The four finalists also each take home a $10,000 prize. They are Anne Fleming, for her novel "Curiosities," Conor Kerr for "Prairie Edge," Deepa Rajagopalan for the short story collection "Peacocks of Instagram," and Eric Chacour for his novel "What I Know About You," translated from the original French by Pablo Strauss.
--With files from Nicole Thompson and David Friend.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2024.
Jordan Omstead and Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press
