Arts & Entertainment Luke Simcoe aeditor@ gmail.com By ba Shay . e Ls ‘Tieeawy: night, me. winner of a the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize was announced in Toronto and the ‘prize— at $40,000, the richest for fiction in Canada—went to Elizabeth Hay for Late Nights on Air. The announcement surprised some; the favoured authors were Michael Ondaatje (Divisadero) and M.G. Vassanji (The Assassin’s Song), who’ve both won the Giller before and are regarded as valuable literary exports. I watched the ceremony on CTV (broadcast a full day after the fact). Those in charge did their best to glitz up the proceedings, but there is very little glamour in the literary scene, even amongst the Toronto elite. The evening ended with a joyful Elizabeth Hay urging everyone to “read more books,” which seemed beside the point, given the audience of authors and publishing bigwigs. Hay is less known than some of her fellow nominees, though she has been up for major awards 10 but” at. would : : almost any other book | on ‘this list win; Alissa York for being the only one under fifty, and because her book Effigy, about Mormons in 19"-century Utah, covers in a canoe trip. But, if a jury of h peers deemed Hay’s effort worthy of the | deserving, but it would have been nice to see almost any other book on this list win.” unusual ground for a Canadian novel. Daniel Poliquin (and his translator) deserved to be rewarded for the genuinely funny A Secret Between Us. Humour in Canadian literature is too rarely given due recognition. Compared big cheque, perhaps it’s worth a look. The other big literary announcement of the season happens on November 27, when the Governor General’s Literary Awards are held at the Grande Bibliothéque in Montreal. The scope of ] i in the company 0 oe, ah a the GGs is broader and more democratic than the privately-funded Giller. While the fiction prize is the focus for many (especially for booksellers, who see a hefty up-tick in holiday sales of winning and nominated novels), awards are also given in poetry, drama, nonfiction, translation, and children’s writing and illustration, plus French-language awards. Each prize has been bumped up to $25,000 from $15,000 this year, in celebration of the Canada Council’s 50" anniversary. This makes the GGs the biggest overall literary payday in the country. Nominated novelists include Ondaatje and Vassanji (again) as well as Barbara Gowdy for Helpless. To my mind, however, the two most notable contenders are Vancouver’s David Chariandy and Montreal’s Heather O’Neill. Both of these authors are nominated for debut novels, both are quite young, and both deal with utterly bleak and terrifying subject matter. O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals is the story of Baby, a Montreal teenager, and her junkie dad. It’s a dark read, butit’s teeming with some of the most lovely and enduring images in recent memory. | first encountered O’Neill on the CBC radio program Wiretap, reading portions of Lullabies, and those words and her distinctively dreamy voice were an unforgettable combination. It’s unlikely she’ll win, but 7 IT have no doubt she’ll be back on the list someday. David Chariandy’s Soucouyant | is as much a long-shot, and as unnerving. It’s the portrait of a mother rapidly _ losing a battle with dementia, as told by - a bewildered son. Both books absolutely only eee betes rn’ to so} as the man who wrote the. words ‘th Fraggle Rock theme song. Margaret _ _ Atwood is also up for The Door, and, well, she’s Margaret Atwood, so it’s likely she’ll go home with the prize. A less predictable choice would be Nova Scotia’s Don Domanski, for All Our Wonder Unavenged, a meditative—even metaphysical—volume. Drama _ prize nominees are Anosh Irani and Mortis Panych, both of Vancouver. Irani’s The Bombay Plays is one of the best bits of theatre I’ve seen. Panych has won the GG in drama twice previously and he may very well pull of the hat trick. The Governor General’s Awards won’t get a fancy prime-time TV airing, but the winning books will still get a boost in sales, and isn’t that what really counts?