Toronto’s Souvankham Thammavongsa takes home Scotiabank Giller Prize 2020
The author of How to Pronounce Knife wins the largest prize in Canadian fiction
Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of How to Pronounce Knife.
THE SCOTIABANK GILLER Prize was awarded to author Souvankham Thammavongsa at a gala event livestreamed from the Vancouver Public Library on November 9.
Thammavongsa received the $100,000 honour for her fiction debut, How to Pronounce Knife (McClelland and Stewart), which is a collection of stories about immigrants building new lives in faraway places. She draws from personal experience: Thammavongsa was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, and raised in Toronto.
“Thank you to my mom and dad,” Thammavongsa said at the virtual ceremony. “Thirty-six years ago, I went to school and I pronounced the word knife wrong. And I didn’t get a prize. But tonight there is one.”
Actor Eric McCormack hosted the gala, which featured a performance by Diana Krall.
The other finalists were Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson, Here the Dark by David Bergen, Shani Mootoo’s Polar Vortex, and Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel.
A five-person jury, chaired by Forgiveness author Mark Sakamoto, selected the longlist, shortlist, and winner. The panel also included Canadian novelists Eden Robinson, David Chariandy, and Tom Rachman and British critic Claire Armistead.
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