{"id":105204,"date":"2025-10-06T14:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T14:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/105204\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T14:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T14:05:10","slug":"giller-prize-2025-shortlist-includes-books-by-emma-donoghue-mona-awad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/105204\/","title":{"rendered":"Giller Prize 2025 shortlist includes books by Emma Donoghue, Mona Awad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Mona Awad, top left, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Eddy Boudel Tan, Emma Knight and Emma Donoghue made Giller Prize’s 2025 shortlist.Supplied<\/p>\n

Emma Donoghue\u2019s history with the Giller Prize so far has been a bridesmaid\u2019s tale. The Irish-Canadian writer has had three of her novels nominated for the award without taking top honours. Will the fourth time be the charm? <\/p>\n

Donoghue\u2019s The Paris Express, published by Harper Avenue, is among the five shortlisted titles, all novels, announced on Monday. Canada\u2019s most prestigious literary prize is worth $100,000 to the winner. <\/p>\n

Set over a single day, the book from the Dublin-born Donoghue<\/a> imagines the lives of the train passengers prior to a real-life derailment disaster in Paris that occurred on Oct. 22, 1895. The three-person Giller jury was onboard with The Paris Express, praising a story \u201cas intricately crafted as a station master\u2019s pocket watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Souvankham Thammavongsa, who won the Giller<\/a> in 2020 for her short-story collection How to Pronounce Knife, is back as a finalist for Pick a Colour, a debut novel about a boxer-turned-manicurist, published by Knopf Canada. The jury noted the Thailand-born author\u2019s \u201cinimitable style, crackling wit and profound confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shortlist was chosen by a jury composed of Canadian authors Loghan Paylor, Deepa Rajagopalan and jury chair Dionne Irving. They narrowed down more than 100 works of fiction from publishers across the country.<\/p>\n

Giller Prize longlist features three former winners<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadian authors Jordan Abel and Aaron Tucker were both initially named to the jury but quickly dropped out, citing ethical reasons related to Giller\u2019s association with its former title sponsor, Scotiabank. The bank\u2019s subsidiary 1832 Asset Management at one point was the biggest international investor in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems Ltd. <\/p>\n

U.S.-based Mona Awad, a finalist in 2016 for her novel 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, returns to the shortlist with We Love You, Bunny, published by Scribner Canada. The jury cited the follow-up to 2019\u2019s Bunny as an \u201cunhinged waltz through the corridors of creative academia, blending satire and surreal magical chaos as artistic creations stumble through the night with axes and fall in love, frat parties end in murder\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

First-time nominee Eddy Boudel Tan, from Vancouver, landed on the shortlist for The Tiger and the Cosmonaut<\/a>, a gay suspense novel published by Viking Canada. The jury cited a \u201cdeeply introspective\u201d story that \u201cexamines the complications inherent to immigration and assimilation within the contexts of sexuality and race in Canada\u2019s rural and urban landscapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toronto author\/entrepreneur Emma Knight made the shortlist with her fiction debut, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus<\/a>, published by Viking Canada. The coming-of-age tale follows a Canadian student through her first year at the University of Edinburgh (where fellow finalist Awad, as it happens, earned a masters degree in English). <\/p>\n

\u201cWith charm, insight and emotional precision,\u201d the jury cited, \u201cKnight deftly weaves themes of intergenerational legacy and self-discovery into a narrative both intimate and resonant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The winner will be announced on Nov. 17 at a televised ceremony in Toronto hosted by Rick Mercer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Mona Awad, top left, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Eddy Boudel Tan, Emma Knight and Emma…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[4320,4309,4321,359,9,4302,4322,995,4301,4314,4315,4311,4303,4300,179,2597,18,117,440,4313,4307,4333,4304,4305,3428,19,17,4310,3521,3136,4323,4306,4328,4329,4331,4326,4330,4324,4327,430,4317,4318,790,4316,4325,4308,82,4319,4312,4222,66,4332],"class_list":{"0":"post-105204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-breaking-news","13":"tag-breaking-news-video","14":"tag-british-columbia","15":"tag-canada","16":"tag-canada-news","17":"tag-canada-sports","18":"tag-canada-sports-news","19":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","20":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","21":"tag-canadian-news","22":"tag-economy","23":"tag-education","24":"tag-eire","25":"tag-entertainment","26":"tag-environment","27":"tag-federal-government","28":"tag-foreign-news","29":"tag-globe-and-mail","30":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","31":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","32":"tag-government","33":"tag-ie","34":"tag-ireland","35":"tag-life-news","36":"tag-lifestyle","37":"tag-local-news","38":"tag-manitoba","39":"tag-national-news","40":"tag-new-brunswick","41":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","42":"tag-northwest-territories","43":"tag-nova-scotia","44":"tag-nunavut","45":"tag-ontario","46":"tag-pei","47":"tag-photos","48":"tag-political-news","49":"tag-political-opinion","50":"tag-politics","51":"tag-politics-news","52":"tag-quebec","53":"tag-sports-news","54":"tag-technology","55":"tag-travel","56":"tag-trudeau","57":"tag-us-news","58":"tag-world-news","59":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}