Conor Kerr was bird hunting in rural Saskatchewan when he learned his book, "Prairie Edge," had been shortlisted for the Giller Prize. He's one of five finalists named Wednesday for the prestigious literary award, which goes to the best work of Canadian fiction published in English in the previous year. "My phone's been cutting in and out all day," Kerr said, so the congratulations have come piecemeal – perhaps an anticlimactic end to a big couple of weeks that also saw him shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
He said he's thrilled his crime thriller about two distant Metis cousins planning an attention-grabbing Land Back protest is getting recognition. "It's just so nice to see my book out in the world and getting some love." The short list also features poet-novelist Anne Michaels, whose multi-generational saga "Held" is also a finalist for the Booker Prize, based in the U.
K. The Giller finalists also include Éric Chacour's "What I Know About You," translated by Pablo Strauss, about an Egyptian doctor straining under the strictures of his family's expectations. That book also made the short list for the Writers' Trust fiction prize.
Deepa Rajagopalan's "Peacocks of Instagram" is the only short story collection on the list. The book features 14 works about the Indian diaspora. Rounding out the short list is Anne Fleming for her centuries-spanning novel "Curiosities," a queer love story partly set in the 1600s.
"It's very gratifying to see the b.
