Giller Prize long list unveiled

New novels from Austin Clarke, David Adams Richards and Rawi Hage are in the running for one of Canada's top literary awards, organizers of the $50,000 Giller Prize revealed Monday.

Past Giller winners Clarke, Richards and David Bergen made the cut for their novels More, The Lost Highway and The Retreat, respectively.

Hage fresh off winning the lucrative and prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his debut novel, De Niro's Game, in June has been longlisted for his follow-up, Cockroach.

Altogether, the three-member juryselected 15 books as semifinalists out of the 95 submitted. The other longlisted entries are:

• Joseph Boyden for his novel Through Black Spruce
• Anthony De Sa for his collection of short stories Barnacle Love
• Emma Donoghue for her novel The Sealed Letter
• Marina Endicott for her novel Good toa Fault
• Steven Galloway for his novel The Cellist of Sarajevo
• Kenneth J. Harvey for his novel Blackstrap Hawco
• Patrick Lane for his novel Red Dog, Red Dog
• Pasha Malla for his collection of short stories The Withdrawal Method
• Paul Quarrington for his novel The Ravine
• Nino Ricci for his novel The Origin of the Species
• Mary Swan for her novel The Boys in the Trees

"These fifteen books vary widely in technique, in setting and in tone from the historical to the contemporary, from the comic to the satiric to the tragic, from the local to the international," according to the jury, which this year comprisesLiberal MP Bob Rae and authors Margaret Atwood and Colm Toibin.

"Each contributes something fresh, original, thoughtful or vital to the practice of fiction."

The jury will reveal its short list of finalists for the 15th edition of the prize on Oct. 7, with the winner to be announced at aToronto gala on Nov. 11.

Established in memory of the lateliterary journalist Doris Giller by her husband, Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch, the Giller Prize honours the best Canadian novel or book of short fiction over the past year.