Giller Prize Winner

Happy Halloween.

Yesterday the winner of the Scotiabank Giller prize was announced. If you've never heard of it here is a brief description from their website.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize is Canada’s most distinguished literary prize, awarding $50,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English. Finalists on the shortlist receive $5,000. The award was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller.

In September 2005, Scotiabank was proud to become the first ever co-sponsor of the prize – and it has been known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize ever since

This years winner is Will Ferguson, author of 419. Amazon gives the novel the below description.

From internationally bestselling travel writer Will Ferguson, author of Happiness™ and Spanish Fly, comes a novel both epic in its sweep and intimate in its portrayal of human endurance. A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine. A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in sub-Saharan Africa. And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet, looking for victims.

Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: “Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help…”

Will Ferguson takes readers deep into the labyrinth of lies that is 419, the world’s most insidious Internet scam.

When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of one such swindle, she sets out to track down—and corner—her father’s killer. It is a dangerous game she’s playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine. Woven into Laura’s journey is a mysterious woman from the African Sahel with scars etched into her skin and a young man who finds himself caught up in a web of violence and deceit.

And running through it, a dying father’s final words: “You, I love.”