(Toronto) Montreal-born Sarah Bernstein’s absurd novel, Study for Obedience, has landed a spot on another hot list: finalists for the $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Ms. Bernstein is also shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her second novel, which follows an unnamed narrator who moves to a hostile country to become her brother’s housekeeper.
The shortlist of five finalists, announced on Wednesday, also includes Booker winner Eleanor Catton for Birnam Wood, which puts guerrilla gardeners in the path of a billionaire who is not as eccentric as he seems.
Kevin Chong was cast in The Double Life of Benson Yu, a work of metafiction in which a graphic novel author reluctantly confronts his difficult childhood.
The Islands: Stories by Dionne Irving, which explores the lives of Jamaican women and the broader forces that shape them, is the only short story collection to make the shortlist.
CS Richardson’s novel All The Color in the World about the remarkable life of an artist rounds out the shortlist.
The Giller Prize, the largest grant for a work of fiction in Canada, will be awarded on November 13.
