$100K Giller Prize celebrates Canadian fiction in Toronto tonight

The Vancouver-born, Montreal-based author is one of six finalists for the $100,000 fiction prize for her latest, Do Not Say We Have Nothing.

• CBC Books: More coverage of the 2016 Giller Prize

The annual prize toasts the past year's best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English, with the author receiving $100,000 and $10,000 going to each remaining finalist.

Thien has already made a splash in Canada and abroad for the novel, which explores the aftermath of China's cultural revolution through its story of young musicians whose lives are thrown into tumult.

• Madeleine Thien: Canada's newest literary star

London, Ont.'s Emma Donoghue, fresh off the success of her novel-turned-Oscar-nominated film Room, is also a contender this year for her historical novel The Wonder.

Meanwhile, noted newcomer Mona Awad of Montreal is in the running for her celebrated debut novel 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, which captured the $40,000 Amazon.ca First Novel Award earlier this year.

Rounding out the short list are:

• The Best Kind of People by Quebec-born, Toronto-based Zoe Whittall.
• The Party Wall by Montrealer Catherine Leroux, translated by Lazer Lederhendler.
• Yiddish for Pirates by Hamilton, Ont. writer and poet Gary Barwin.

The winner will be selected by this year's five-member jury: Lawrence Hill, Kathleen Winter, Jeet Heer, Samantha Harvey and Alan Warner.

The Giller was established in 1994 by businessman Jack Rabinovitch in memory of his wife, literary journalist Doris Giller. Past winners have included Margaret Atwood, Joseph Boyden, Alice Munro and, most recently, Andr Alexis in 2015.