Madeleine Thien has been named the winner of the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize and its attendant C$100,000 purse for her novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
Thien was selected from a shortlist including authors Mona Awad, Gary Barwin, Emma Donoghue, Catherine Leroux, and Zoe Whittall, which was announced on September 26. The prize was awarded at a black-tie dinner and award ceremony in Toronoto on November 7.
The panel of judges—comprised of chair Lawrence Hill, Samantha Harvey, Jeet Heer, Alan Warner, and Kathleen Winter—called the winning book (which was published in the U.S. by Norton and in Canada by Knopf Canada) "detailed, layered, complex drama" and "a beautiful homage to music and to the human spirit."
"Do Not Say We Have Nothing addresses some of the timeless questions of literature," the judges continued. "Who do we love, and how do the love of art, of others and ourselves sustain us individually and collectively in the face of genocide?"
Thien is also the author of the story collection Simple Recipes, and of the novels Certainty and Dogs at the Perimeter.
