2022 Giller Prize finalists include Billy-Ray Belcourt, Sheila Heti

Indie publishers are dominating the 2022 Giller Prize longlist.

The list of 14 books now in competition for the $100,000 award was announced Tuesday by 2021 prize winner Omar El Akkad in St. John’s, Newfoundland as the rest of the country watched on the prize’s Facebook channel, with the harbour and a foggy day providing a scenic background.

In announcing the longlist, El Akkad, who won for his book “What Strange Paradise,” talked about how winning is life-changing for a writer, and “afforded me so many opportunities.” He also joked that “If you are nominated for this award it can quite often be an overwhelming experience,” not least because it will include battles over TikTok and Twitter on which authors will be cc’d for “no discernable reason. Enjoy it.”

The longlist, which, in this 29th year of the Giller Prize, was whittled down from 138 submissions from publishers, includes:

Billy-Ray Belcourt, for his novel, “A Minor Chorus,” (Hamish Hamilton); he won the 2018 Griffin Prize for his first poetry collection “This Wound Is A World”; his first memoir “A History Of My Brief Body” was also acclaimed. This is his first novel.

Kim Fu, for her short story collection, “Lesser-Known Monsters of the 21st Century” (Coach House Books) which the Star’s reviewer called “Thoughtful, inventive, and clever … a balm for anxious pandemic states of mind.”

Rawi Hage, for his short story collection, “Stray Dogs,” (Knopf Canada). No stranger to the list for his novels, this is Montreal writer Hage’s first short story collection, which our reviewer said “reaffirms his devotion to acting as a witness for the fractious lives upended by history and the tides.”

Sheila Heti, for her novel, “Pure Colour,” (Knopf Canada) in which God considers the first draft of his creation.

André Forget, for his novel, “In the City of Pigs,” (Dundurn Press)

Brian Thomas Isaac, for his novel, “All The Quiet Places,” (Touchwood Editions)

Conor Kerr, for his novel, “Avenue of Champions,” (Nightwood Editions)

Suzette Mayr, for her novel, “The Sleeping Car Porter,” (Coach House Books)

Noor Naga, for her novel, “If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English (Graywolf Press)

André Narbonne, for his novel “Lucien & Olivia,” (Black Moss Press)

Dimitri Nasrallah, for his novel, “Hotline,” (Véhicule Press)

Fawn Parker, for her novel, “What We Both Know,” (McClelland & Stewart) which the Star’s reviewer called “engrossing gut-punch of a novel.”

Tsering Yangzom Lama, for her novel, “We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies,” (McClelland & Stewart) about which our reviewer said “we’ll remember her primary focus: the tenacious identity of a people forever cast out from home.”

Antoine Wilson, for his novel, “Mouth To Mouth,” (Simon & Schuster Canada)

The five-person jury was composed of Canadian authors Casey Plett (Jury Chair), Kaie Kellough, Waubgeshig Rice, and American authors, Katie Kitamura and Scott Spencer.

The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 27; the Giller Prize will be awarded at a gala ceremony on Nov. 7.

The Giller Prize was founded by businessman and philanthropist Jack Rabinovitch in 1994 to honour his wife, Doris Giller, a former books editor at the Toronto Star, who died of cancer in 1993. The prize then was $25,000. This year, the winner receives $100,000 with each of the shortlisted finalists receiving $10,000.

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