Get the best Canadian audiobooks in your library
When it comes to literary talent, Canada punches well above its weight. That talent has been cultivated by a prize culture that shines the spotlight on the best titles of each year, propelling great stories onto bestseller lists at home and around the world. In Canada, are always on our radar and at the forefront of Canada’s burgeoning literary prize culture is the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which celebrates the very best in Canadian fiction year after year and offers authors the largest cash prize for fiction awarded annually in the country. For nearly two months, Audible is making 10 available to download for free. It’s a chance to get the best of Canadian writing in your library.
The Scotiabank Giller Prize has been awarded to some of the most significant Canadian writing over the years, and brings glamour and prestige to the Canadian publishing world through its annual gala. Started in 1994 by Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife Doris Giller to honour Canadian novelists and short story writers, the prize’s first black tie gala was such a success that the event would soon be broadcast nationally on the CBC.
In 2005, the literary award teamed up with Scotiabank, increasing the size of the total prize purse. It grew steadily to , with $100,000 going to the winner and $10,000 to each finalist. Not only does the sizable prize support writers themselves, allowing them to spend more time focusing on their art, but the support and publicity of the Scotiabank Giller Prize also introduces bold new fiction to Canadian audiences. The Giller Prize propels Canadian writers onto an international stage, and many winning titles and nominees have gone on to be published in the US and UK markets as well as translated into foreign languages.
Free Scotiabank Giller Prize-Winning Audiobooks from Audible
From April 29 to June 28, is giving Canadians the gift of blissful literary escape by making ten previous Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning audiobooks free. They’re free to download into your library and, once downloaded, are yours to keep long term.
Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning audiobooks are the perfect way to explore the best in Canadian fiction. Below you’ll find a summary of the titles that will be available until June 28. Many of them are Canadian classics that have been adapted into movies and TV series in part thanks to the reputations they earned after winning the prize.
, Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler’s iconic 10th novel is a masterclass in unreliable narrators. The story is told from the perspective of Barney Panofsky, an aging Montreal libertine defending himself against the accusation that he murdered his best friend. It’s a journey across decades, continents and marriages that always comes back to Richler’s Montreal.
