And a look back at the literary award's roots
UNFORGETTABLE SAGAS, SCOOPS AND SCANDALS
from Toronto Life’slong-form archives |
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Dear reader, Last November, Canada’s most prestigious and generous literary award—the Giller Prize—also became its most controversial. The awards ceremony was interrupted by pro-Palestine protesters who objected to the foundation’s lead sponsor, Scotiabank, because of its substantial stake in Elbit Systems, an arms company that supplies weapons to the Israeli military. After the event’s protesters were detained and charged, more than 2,000 writers and publishers signed an open letter in support of their cause. The fallout didn’t end there. In July, more than 30 eligible authors withdrew their books from consideration for this year’s prize. In an open letter, they called on the Giller Foundation to end its relationship with sponsors that have ties to Israel—including the Azrieli Foundation, Indigo and Audible—and to pressure Scotiabank to divest from Elbit Systems. The Giller Foundation, for its part, has retained Scotiabank as its lead sponsor but removed the bank’s name from the prize, a move organizers hope will direct the conversation back to literature. The tweaked name is, in fact, a reversion to the prize’s original title—from a time before the award had any corporate sponsors at all. Ahead of this year’s controversial ceremony on Monday, we’re revisiting Jack Batten’s 2017 story about the prize’s founder, Jack Rabinovitch, and his beloved wife, Doris Giller. For more great long-reads from Toronto Life, subscribe to our print edition here. |
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| —Maddy Mahoney, assistant editor |
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Doris Giller loved a good time. She loved books. And she loved Jack Rabinovitch, who created the Giller Prize to make sure we’d never forget her |
BY JACK BATTEN | AUGUST 8, 2017 |
From the first time Jack Rabinovitch spotted Doris Giller, when they were kids in Montreal, he thought she was a knockout. They went separate ways for two and a half decades—Rabinovitch into business and Giller into newspapers—before they got married in 1972, moving to Toronto soon afterward. Giller, an avid reader and book reviewer, was outspoken and large-spirited, while Rabinovitch tended to happily get lost in her shadow. Then, in 1992, Giller found out she had lung cancer; she died less than a year later. Rabinovitch, determined to honour Giller’s memory with the grandeur her personality deserved, wrangled a who’s who of the Canadian literary scene into collaborating on a high-profile new award: the Giller Prize. |
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