The winner will be revealed on November 10.

October 8, 2015 5:33 AM

The Scotiabank Giller Prize presents its 2015 shortlist. The five titles were chosen from a longlist of 12 books announced on September 9, 2015. One hundred and sixty-eight titles were submitted by 63 publishers from every region of the country.

• Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis, published by Coach House Books

When Hermes and Apollo make a bet about human happiness, they grant 15 dogs staying at a vet clinic the power of human consciousness. The dogs instantly become divided between those who prefer their old dog ways and those who want to take advantage of their newfound increased intelligence. What unfolds is a powerful story about what it means to have consciousness, and the good and the bad that comes with it.

• Arvida by Samuel Archibald, published by Biblioasis, translated from the French by Donald Winkler

Like a Proust-obsessed Cormac McCarthy, Samuel Archibald's portrait of his hometown is filled with innocent children and wild beasts, attempted murder and ritual mutilation, haunted houses and road trips to nowhere, bad men and mysterious women. Gothic, fantastical, and incandescent, filled with stories of everyday wonder and terror, longing and love, Arvida explores the line which separates memory from story, and heralds the arrival of an important new voice.

• Outline by Rachel Cusk, published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Rachel Cusk's Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and stark, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during one oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her students in storytelling exercises. She meets other visiting writers for dinner and discourse. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her neighbor from the plane. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves: their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss.

• Daydreams of Angels by Heather O’Neill, published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

From the author of Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night comes a compelling collection of short stories filled with quirky characters and captivating descriptions of worlds both real and imagined.

• Martin John by Anakana Schofield, published by A John Metcalf Book, an imprint of Biblioasis

Martin John sits beside you on the train. Can he see that look on your face? He needs to see that look in your eyes, the surprise of his touch upon your leg and your repugnance. Despite his work's distractions, his evil flatmate's enmity, his worn-out mother's admonishments, his own rules and routines, nothing can diminish his determination to touch - and to repel. Martin John is a testament to Anakana Schofield's skill and audacity. With a Beckettian grasp of the loops and circuits of a molester's mind, Schofield's novel is a brilliant exploration of a marginal character, but not a rare character. Martin John is the kind of character many women have experienced, but whom few of us have understood.

The 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist books are available in accessible format for print-disabled Canadians through the National Network for Equitable Library Service (NNELS). NNELS is a digital library of accessible format books for Canadians with perceptual disabilities, made available through Canada’s public library network. https://nnels.ca.

posted by Fizz (7 comments total)

Well, I guess I'm off to the reserve list at my local library.
posted by Kitteh at 6:10 AM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Scotiabank Giller prize?
Is it me or is there something unholy about inserting a corporate name into a prize for literature.
What's next, the Mastercard-Nobel Peace Prize?
posted by bitteroldman at 8:29 AM on October 8, 2015

bitteroldman,

I don't like it either, but the sponsorship helps maintain the prize and the award that is given to the winner. The alternative is that such an award might not exist. You take the good with the bad.
posted by Fizz at 8:32 AM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Wikipedia says the name Giller was a vanity gift to the wife of the businessman who started it, so ScotiaBank aren't exactly desecrating some great historical name here. And they're explicitly paying to make the works accessible, so I'm fine with it.
posted by Space Coyote at 8:37 AM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

Outline kicks ass. It's like all the most interesting parts of a longer novel in concentrated form.
posted by ostro at 4:54 PM on October 8, 2015

What's next, the Mastercard-Nobel Peace Prize?

Nobel himself funded the organization with Baku oil money. How old must money be to be clean?
posted by BWA at 7:36 PM on October 8, 2015

Thanks, Fizz. Somehow I'd escaped hearing about any of these on the shortlist. Holds placed at library for Outline and Fifteen Dogs!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:26 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]