![\"These](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/giller-prize-2025.png\")
These are the five books on the 2025 Giller Prize shortlist. (Graphic by CBC)<\/p>\nThese are the five books on the 2025 Giller Prize shortlist. (Graphic by CBC)<\/p>\n
Mona Awad,\u00a0Eddy Boudel Tan,\u00a0Emma Donoghue, Emma Knight and\u00a0Souvankham Thammavongsa\u00a0are the five writers shortlisted for the 2025\u00a0Giller Prize<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The $100,000 award annually recognizes the best in Canadian fiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 2025\u00a0shortlist features five novels, covering a wide range of material, from an 1800s train disaster in\u00a0Donoghue’s The Paris Express<\/a>, to the family\u00a0tragedy revealed in Tan’s\u00a0The Tiger and the Cosmonaut<\/a>\u00a0to life\u00a0working in a nail salon in\u00a0Thammavongsa’s\u00a0Pick A Colour.<\/p>\n Thammavongsa\u00a0previously\u00a0won the 2020 Giller Prize<\/a> for her short story collection\u00a0How To Pronounce Knife<\/a>, while Donoghue was on the shortlist in 2016 for\u00a0The\u00a0Wonder<\/a>\u00a0and on the longlist for two other novels.<\/p>\n Awad, nominated this year for\u00a0We Love You, Bunny,\u00a0also made the 2016 shortlist for\u00a013\u00a0Ways\u00a0of\u00a0Looking at a Fat Girl<\/a>.<\/p>\n Knight is the only author on the 2025 shortlist honoured for a debut work of\u00a0fiction,\u00a0the novel\u00a0The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus<\/a>.<\/p>\n The books on the 2025 Giller Prize<\/a> shortlist\u00a0are available in accessible formats\u00a0through the\u00a0National Network for Equitable Library Services<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Centre for Equitable Library Access<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The shortlist was chosen from more than 100 books by jury chair and former finalist Dionne Irving along with\u00a0jurors Loghan Paylor and\u00a0Deepa Rajagopalan.<\/p>\n The 2025 Giller Prize<\/a>\u00a0award ceremony, hosted by comedian Rick Mercer,\u00a0will be broadcast on Monday, Nov.\u00a017, at 9 p.m. ET (11:30 p.m. AT, 12 a.m. NT)\u00a0on CBC TV and CBC Gem, with a livestream also available at 9 p.m. ET on CBC’s YouTube channel.<\/p>\n It will also be\u00a0broadcast\u00a0on CBC Radio One and CBC Listen.<\/p>\n In 2023, the Giller Prize<\/a> broadcast was twice interrupted\u00a0by protesters taking issue with\u00a0Scotiabank, the prize’s former main sponsor,\u00a0because of the bank’s\u00a0investment in\u00a0Elbit\u00a0Systems, an Israeli defence contractor.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2024, an organization named\u00a0CanLit\u00a0Responds gathered signatures\u00a0of Canadian\u00a0writers\u00a0calling for the Giller Prize to divest from Scotiabank<\/a>,\u00a0as well as two other sponsors,\u00a0and pledged to not submit their work or attend any related events until their demands are met.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the\u00a0Giller Prize parted ways with Scotiabank as a sponsor<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last year’s Giller Prize winner was\u00a0Anne Michaels<\/a>\u00a0for her novel\u00a0Held<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sarah Bernstein, who won the award in 2023 for\u00a0Study for Obedience<\/a>,\u00a0signed the July 2024\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0calling for the prize to cut ties with Scotiabank.\u00a0Omar El Akkad, who won the prize in 2021,\u00a0also signed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other past Giller Prize<\/a> winners include\u00a0Suzette Mayr<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0The Sleeping Car Porter<\/a>,\u00a0Esi Edugyan<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>for\u00a0Washington Black<\/a>,\u00a0Michael Redhill<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Bellevue Square<\/a>,\u00a0Margaret Atwood<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Alias Grace<\/a>,\u00a0Mordecai Richler<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Barney’s Version<\/a>,\u00a0Alice Munro<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Runaway<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0Madeleine Thien<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Do Not Say We Have Nothing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch founded the prize in honour of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller, in 1994. Rabinovitch\u00a0died in 2017 at the age of 87<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can learn more about the five\u00a0shortlisted\u00a0books\u00a0below.\u00a0<\/p>\n We Love You, Bunny\u00a0by Mona Awad\u00a0 A sequel and prequel to\u00a0Bunny<\/a>, Mona Awad’s debut novel,\u00a0We Love You, Bunny\u00a0takes readers back to the New England town and creative writing MFA that started it all. A few years after graduation, Sam publishes her book about the violent and surreal experiences with the other cliquey girls in her program.<\/p>\n On her book tour, she stops at her alma mater and is kidnapped by her frenemies, who are upset with the way she portrayed them in her book. With Sam tied up in the fateful attic, the bunnies go back in time, recounting the story as they remember it.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We Love You, Bunny\u00a0is an unhinged 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, and creative jealousies fuel uncanny powers,” wrote\u00a0the jury in a press statement.<\/p>\n “As hilarious as it is inventive, Awad’s novel is refreshingly original, bold in imagination and daring in its execution, asking us to consider: what do we owe to art, and what, if anything, does art owe us in return?”<\/p>\n Awad is a Boston-based author whose debut short story collection,\u00a013 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl<\/a>, won the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Colorado Book Award and was shortlisted for\u00a0the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize<\/a>. She is also the author of the novels\u00a0Bunny<\/a>,\u00a0Rouge<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0All’s Well<\/a>. Awad teaches at Syracuse University.<\/p>\n The Tiger and the Cosmonaut\u00a0by Eddy Boudel Tan Having built a new life in Vancouver with his boyfriend, Casper Han rarely returns to his hometown, a small remote town in B.C. But when a crisis forces him and his siblings to reunite, they are compelled to confront a long-avoided tragedy \u2014 the mysterious disappearance of his twin brother more than 20 years ago. In\u00a0The Tiger and the Cosmonaut<\/a>, the siblings try to solve what happened to Sam in order to move forward.<\/p>\n “While ruminating on the ways in which the kinetic forces of loss can ricochet through a family, this novel ponders what we owe our families of origin and the sometimes contradictory narratives we tell about ourselves, constructions that both hold us together and push us apart,” said the jury.<\/p>\n “A deeply introspective novel told as an unfolding mystery, this book blurs our vision in relation to the complicated nature of truth while also showing us how stories keep us sane.”<\/p>\n Tan is a writer based in Vancouver, where he co-founded the Sidewalk Supper Project. His previous works include the novels\u00a0After Elias\u00a0and\u00a0The Rebellious Tide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tan has been a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the ReLit Best Novel Award and the Ferro-Grumley Award\u00a0and was named a Rising Star by Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2021. His work has appeared in Joyland and Yolk.<\/p>\n LISTEN\u00a0| Eddy Boudel Tan on\u00a0The Tiger and the Cosmonaut:\u00a0<\/p>\n North by Northwest15:37Eddy Boudel Tan on The Tiger and the Cosmonaut<\/p>\n The Paris Express\u00a0by Emma Donoghue The Paris Express<\/a>\u00a0takes readers aboard a suspenseful train journey from the Normandy coast to Paris. Inspired by a real-life photo of a train hanging off the side of Montparnasse station,\u00a0The Paris Express<\/a>\u00a0unravels over the course of one fateful day, featuring the fascinating stories of the passengers, from a young boy traveling solo to a pregnant woman on the run, the devoted railway workers and a young anarchist on a mission.<\/p>\n “As intricately crafted as a station master’s pocket watch, The Paris Express gains momentum and depth with each chapter, propelling us towards an inevitable, and deeply moving, conclusion,” said the jury. “Donoghue’s novel unearths the smallest fears and deepest desires hidden inside ourselves and our fellow travellers, and shows us who we can become when faced with certain catastrophe.”<\/p>\n Donoghue is an Irish Canadian writer whose books include the novels\u00a0Landing<\/a>,\u00a0Room<\/a>,\u00a0Frog Music<\/a>,\u00a0The Wonder<\/a>,\u00a0The Pull of the Stars<\/a>,\u00a0Learned by Heart<\/a>\u00a0and the children’s book\u00a0The Lotterys Plus One<\/a>.\u00a0Room<\/a>\u00a0was an international bestseller and was adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Brie Larson.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Pull of the Stars<\/a>\u00a0was\u00a0longlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Canada Reads\u00a02025<\/a>\u00a0and shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus\u00a0by Emma Knight\u00a0 In\u00a0The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus<\/a>, Pen is set for an eventful first-year university experience at the University of Edinburgh.\u00a0In addition to her studies, she looks for answers about her parents’ messy divorce by writing a letter to her dad’s estranged best friend, thriller writer Lord Lennox.<\/p>\n When he invites her to spend a weekend at his family estate, she can’t help but become enthralled with his entire family \u2014 and slowly begins to unravel the family secrets that left her parents so pained.<\/p>\n “With charm, insight, and emotional precision, Knight deftly weaves themes of intergenerational legacy and self-discovery into a narrative both intimate and resonant,” said the jury.<\/p>\n Knight is an author, journalist and entrepreneur based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Vogue, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus and The New York Times. She co-hosted and created the podcast\u00a0Fanfare\u00a0and co-founded the organic beverage company Greenhouse. She is the author of cookbooks\u00a0How to Eat with One Hand\u00a0and\u00a0The Greenhouse Cookbook.\u00a0The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus<\/a>\u00a0was chosen for Jenna Bush Hager’s book club as well as that of Barnes & Noble.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Pick a Colour\u00a0by Souvankham Thammavongsa Pick A Colour\u00a0tells the story of the day in the life of Ning, a retired boxer who works at a nail salon. Ning paints and polishes customers’ nails, falling into the routine and rhythms.\u00a0But despite her anonymous exterior, she’s an intellectual, a deep thinker and is haunted by the roads not taken.\u00a0<\/p>\n “With an inimitable style that decentralizes the English language, crackling wit, and profound confidence, author Thammavongsa challenges our biases and insists that we never look at a nail salon, or its workers, the same way again,” said the jury. “A master of form and restraint, Thammavongsa once again affirms her place as one of the most vital literary voices of our time.”<\/p>\n Thammavongsa\u00a0wrote\u00a0the short story collection\u00a0How to Pronounce Knife<\/a>, which won the Giller Prize and the Trillium Book Award. She’s also the author of four poetry collections and stand-alone stories that have been featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic and Granta. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand\u00a0and\u00a0raised in Toronto.<\/p>\n If you’re interested in writing fiction, the 2026\u00a0CBC Short Story Prize<\/a>\u00a0will be accepting submissions between Sept. 1 and Nov. 1. You can submit your original, unpublished short fiction for a chance to win\u00a0$6,000 from the\u00a0Canada Council for the Arts<\/a>, a two-week writing residency at\u00a0Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity<\/a>\u00a0and have your story published on\u00a0CBC Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These are the five books on the 2025 Giller Prize shortlist. (Graphic by CBC) Mona Awad,\u00a0Eddy Boudel Tan,\u00a0Emma…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134],"class_list":["post-194068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-books","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/we-love-you-bunny-by-mona-awad.jpg\")
We Love You, Bunny is a book by Mona Awad. (Scribner Canada)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/the-tiger-and-the-cosmonaut-by-eddy-boudel-tan.jpg\")
The Tiger and the Cosmonaut is a book by Eddy Boudel Tan. (Penguin Canada)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/the-paris-express-by-emma-donoghue.jpg\")
The Paris Express is a book by Emma Donoghue. (HarperCollins Canada, Woodgate Photography)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/the-life-cycle-of-the-common-octopus-by-emma-knight-1.jpg\")
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is a novel by Emma Knight. (Viking, Caitlin Cronenberg)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/pick-a-colour-by-souvankham-thammavongsa.jpg\")
Pick a Colour is a book by Souvankham Thammavongsa. (Knopf Canada, Steph Martyniuk)<\/p>\n