{"id":291093,"date":"2025-11-18T13:52:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T13:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291093\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T13:52:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T13:52:15","slug":"souvankham-thammavongsa-wins-2025-giller-prize-for-debut-novel-pick-a-colour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291093\/","title":{"rendered":"Souvankham Thammavongsa wins 2025 Giller Prize for debut novel Pick a Colour"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Souvankham Thammavongsa won the $100,000 Giller Prize for Pick a Colour, a debut novel about a boxer-turned-manicurist.Laura Proctor\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Laotian-Canadian poet Souvankham Thammavongsa has won the $100,000 Giller Prize for the best Canadian fiction of the year, prevailing over four other finalists with Pick a Colour<\/a>, a debut novel about a boxer-turned-manicurist.<\/p>\n

The Toronto writer, who won the Giller prize in 2020 for her debut short-story collection How to Pronounce Knife, accepted this year\u2019s prize at a gala ceremony in Toronto on Monday. <\/p>\n

\u201cI never knew that I could make more money than a baseball player,\u201d Ms. Thammavongsa joked as she began her acceptance speech. It was a reference to Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage\u2019s prorated salary of US$57,204 for his late-season heroics. Host Rick Mercer had quipped that the Giller winner would earn more than the phenom ballplayer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a kid, I didn\u2019t know how to become a writer,\u201d Ms. Thammavongsa continued, nervously. \u201cMy mom and dad are not writers. I printed and bound my own books, sold them out of my school knapsack on front lawns at farmers markets and at small press fairs. Thank you to anyone who has ever bought a book that I made.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Pick a Colour takes place over the course of a single day.Gerald Lynch\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Published by Knopf Canada, Pick a Colour is a story about a nail salon owner who toils away for the privileged clients who don\u2019t even know her real name. The novel begins with an uncomfortable opening line: \u201cEveryone is ugly. I should know. I look at people all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its citation, the Giller jury said the book \u201cchallenges our biases and insists that we never look at a nail salon, or its workers, the same way again. A master of form and restraint, Ms. Thammavongsa once again affirms her place as one of the most vital literary voices of our time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Invite-only guests dined in the Park Hyatt Toronto ballroom knowing the future of the country\u2019s most prestigious and richest literary prize is uncertain. The Giller Foundation has said it will be forced to shut down<\/a> at the end of this year unless it receives federal funding. <\/p>\n

Pick a Colour takes place over the course of a single day. Earlier this month, Ms. Thammavongsa talked to The Globe<\/a> about that choice: \u201cIn the publishing world right now, when you\u2019re a writer of colour, you\u2019re supposed to write these epic novels that try to address the question, \u2018Where are you from?\u2019 You go back generations to explain how we got here. I made this story happen over one day; I\u2019m not going to explain where I come from.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ms. Thammavongsa\u2018s novel prevailed over We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad, The Tiger and the Cosmonaut by Eddy Boudel Tan, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight and The Paris Express by four-time nominee Emma Donoghue. <\/p>\n

Each of the runners-up received $10,000. Four of the five shortlisted novels \u2212 all except Mr. Tan\u2019s The Tiger and the Cosmonaut \u2212 are national bestsellers, making this year\u2019s field one of the most populist in the prize\u2019s 31-year history. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are wildly accessible, highly readable books that lack nothing in literary value but pack the solid punch of chart toppers,\u201d Giller executive director Elana Rabinovitch told The Globe before the ceremony. \u201cOne criticism that\u2019s been levelled at us over the years, much like the Booker Prize, is that the judges\u2019 picks are too highbrow, too arcane. This year\u2019s jury blew that up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury was composed of Loghan Paylor, Deepa Rajagopalan and jury chair Dionne Irving. Fellow Canadian authors Jordan Abel and Aaron Tucker were named to the jury but subsequently withdrew, citing ethical reasons related to Giller\u2019s association with its former title sponsor, Bank of Nova Scotia. The bank\u2019s subsidiary 1832 Asset Management was at one point the biggest international investor in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems Ltd.<\/p>\n

The last time Mr. Mercer emceed the Gillers was in 2023<\/a>, when the ceremony was interrupted by anti-Israel protesters who jumped onstage carrying signs that read \u201cScotiabank Funds Genocide.\u201d The comedian attempted to rip one of them from a protester\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

Previous Giller-winning books include Margaret Atwood\u2019s Alias Grace, Mordecai Richler\u2019s Barney\u2019s Version, Alice Munro\u2019s The Love of a Good Woman, Esi Edugyan\u2019s Half-Blood Blues, Andr\u00e9 Alexis\u2019s Fifteen Dogs, Suzette Mayr\u2019s The Sleeping Car Porter, and last year\u2019s winner, Anne Michaels\u2019s Held.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Souvankham Thammavongsa won the $100,000 Giller Prize for Pick a Colour, a debut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,75,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-291093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-entertainment","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}