Giller Prize 2024: Anne Michaels wins Canada’s top literary prize for ‘Held’

Anne Michaels has won the 2024 Giller Prize for her novel “Held,” a multi-generational saga that follows a family over the course of more than a century.
Michaels accepted the prize at a private gala in downtown Toronto on Monday evening that was met by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, protesting the Giller Foundation and its lead sponsor Scotiabank, whose asset management subsidiary holds a stake in the controversial Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
The demonstration, consisting of about 35 people stationed outside the Park Hyatt hotel, called on attendees and authors alike to boycott the Giller Foundation and its programming. They confronted gala guests, calling some “monsters in suits” and yelling “shame” at others as they arrived. Toronto police were also present, at times having to clear the crowd to make way for incoming vehicles.
“Everything I write is a form of witness — against war, indifference, against amnesia of every sort,” Michaels said in her acceptance speech. “From when do we begin to count the dead? I’ve asked that question all my writing life … Literature situates us morally. It recognizes a crucial distinction between what is impossible and what is futile. Everything I write is against futility.”
“Every book bears witness, every book its own form of resistance and assertion. I’m here tonight in solidarity with that purpose, in solidarity with all the long listed and shortlisted writers, and every writer inside and outside this room.”
The gala follows a year of turmoil for the Giller Foundation, which has faced significant backlash over its Scotiabank partnership. Conversations in the reception beforehand centred on the future of the prize.
“Held” is only Michaels’ third novel published in her decades-long literary career, but each reached the Giller shortlist; the latest book, released in 2023, was also one of six works nominated for the prestigious, U.K.-based Booker Prize earlier this fall. Her novels and poems have been published and translated in more than 45 different countries.
The four other authors shortlisted for the Giller Prize were Conor Kerr for “Prairie Edge,” Deepa Rajagopalan for the short-story collection “Peacocks of Instagram,” Anne Fleming for “Curiosities” and Éric Chacour for his novel “What I Know About You,” translated by Pablo Strauss from the original French.
Michaels will collect a $100,000 prize for her win. The other finalists will each earn $10,000. For translated works like Chacour’s novel, the prize money is split, with 70 per cent going to the author and 30 per cent to the translator.
“Held,” a non-linear novel structured in a series of vignettes, opens on the battlefields of the First World War, where a photographer-turned-soldier lies close to death. The sprawling book follows the man back to England as he grapples with his experience. From there, the narrative moves forward and back through time, introducing the reader to the man’s descendants, their spouses and their spouses’ parents.
At last year’s Giller Prize ceremony, pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted the gala, storming the stage and bringing the televised ceremony to a brief halt. (Monday’s event wasn’t broadcast live. It was taped and aired on CBC later in the evening.)
In mid-July more than 40 authors, including several past winners of the prize, signed another open letter calling on the Giller Foundation to end its partnership with Scotiabank. The signatories also said they were withdrawing their works from consideration. A separate letter calling for a boycott of the prize has garnered roughly 300 signatures from members of the literary community.
Later in the summer, two international judges stepped down from the prize’s jury over the organization’s refusal to cut ties with its lead sponsor. The three remaining jury members are authors Noah Richler and Kevin Chong, along with singer-songwriter Molly Johnson.
Scotiabank, which has sponsored the Giller Prize since 2005, has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Emails shared with the Star show that the Giller Foundation’s executive director, Elana Rabinovitch, privately assured authors earlier this year that the organization was parting ways with the bank. But just weeks later, the literary prize appeared to abruptly change direction, publicly doubling down on the partnership.
Though the Giller Prize quietly dropped Scotiabank from its name in early September, the bank remains the lead sponsor of the award.
The prize was established in 1994 by Canadian philanthropist Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, Doris Giller, a literary writer and former Toronto Star journalist who died from cancer the previous year. Jack’s daughter, Elana, has acted as the prize’s executive director since 2004.
With files from the Canadian Press