The annual $100,000 award for fiction is in dire financial straits after a decades-long partnership with Scotiabank ended prematurely earlier this year.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The Giller Prize will be forced to shut down at the end of this year without federal funding, according to the Giller Foundation.
The annual $100,000 award for fiction, the richest in Canada, is in dire financial straits after its decades-long partnership with Scotiabank ended prematurely earlier this year. The Globe and Mail has learned the Giller Foundation is in the process of appealing to the federal government for funds.
A drafted letter to Ottawa obtained by The Globe states the prize is in “urgent need of financial assistance” and that “without stable funding, the Giller will be forced to cease operations at the end of 2025.”
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In the letter that has yet to be sent, the Giller Foundation recommends that Ottawa “ensures the continued discovery and celebration of Canadian authors by securing the survival of the Giller Foundation/Giller Prize with $5-million in funding over three years, beginning in 2025.”
The Giller Foundation faced criticism and protests for its association with former lead sponsor Scotiabank, whose subsidiary 1832 Asset Management at one point was the biggest international investor in Elbit Systems Ltd., Israel’s most prominent publicly traded arms company.
At the nationally televised Giller Prize gala in November, 2023, after the start of the Israel-Hamas war that October, anti-Israel protesters jumped onstage carrying signs that read “Scotiabank Funds Genocide.” After the disrupted ceremony, Canadian authors including past Giller winners Omar El Akkad, David Bergen, Sean Michaels and 2023 recipient Sarah Bernstein, signed an online letter in support of the protesters. Those writers did not return their prize money. The letter was posted by CanLit Responds, a group of authors and cultural workers devoted to a literary world free of arms funding.
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In an e-mail to The Globe, Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Giller Foundation, said she did not believe the prize’s past affiliation with Scotiabank has adversely affected the foundation’s current fundraising efforts.
“We’re not the only arts organization who is seeking funding in a climate where arts sponsorship is harder to come by,” said the daughter of the prize’s founder, the late businessman and philanthropist Jack Rabinovitch. ”I think that all arts organizations, especially small ones like ours, are facing funding challenges. We have worked diligently to find corporate, philanthropic and individual donors to support our programs and continue to do so.”
The Giller Prize (known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize from 2005 to 2023) was established in 1994 to annually recognize the Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English. Among the past recipients are Margaret Atwood, M. G. Vassanji, Alice Munro, Mordecai Richler, Michael Ondaatje, Austin Clarke, André Alexis, Suzette Mayr and, last year, Anne Michaels for her novel, Held.
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The Giller Foundation shared its draft letter with a number of Canadian literary all-stars in a bid to gain their support in petitioning for funding.
The Giller Prize currently receives no government funding, according to Rabinovitch. The Governor General’s Literary Awards, a competitor in the book-based sweepstakes in Canada, enjoys the support of the public funder, Canada Council for the Arts. The awards recognize 14 books in English and French, with a total annual prize value of $450,000.
The Giller’s three-year travel-sponsorship deal with the Azrieli Foundation, a philanthropic establishment in Canada and Israel, will be over as of this year. The Giller Foundation is considering the elimination of its famous gala dinner and the national tour of nominated authors in hopes of keeping the prize alive.
“Anything is possible,” Rabinovitch said. “We are weighing all options.”