My Excuses for a Year of Silence…Oh and The 2011 Giller Prize Winner Too
Has it seriously been a year since I last wrote on my blog? Shameful. I know. Will you forgive me if I say I have several good excuses? I respectfully submit the following excuses for your perusal:
- I have been busy moving into a new home;
- I have been busy opening my own business;
- I have been busy playing Scrabble for iPad;
- I have been busy training to run a 25 KM trail run to raise funds for a local cancer center; and
- The most important reason of them all, I have been busy wiping the 3 runny little noses of my bonus children and entertaining said little noses every second weekend.
It is with great joy that I write that Esi Edugyan has been crowned the 2011 winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel Half-Blood Blues. This year’s winner did not bring about the media coverage that last year’s winner did as a result of her small publisher’s inability to keep up with the demand generated by the victory of this prestigious prize. I suppose we will know rather soon which of the two had more book sales. My bet is that last year’s fiasco made the book that much sexier than it’s cover ever could but then again, who am I to judge. I suppose any press is good press for CanLit and for that, I am grateful.
“Paris, 1940. A brilliant jazz musician, Hiero, is arrested by the Nazis and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. He is a German citizen. And he is black.Fifty years later, his friend and fellow musician, Sid, must relive that unforgettable time, revealing the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that sealed Hiero’s fate. From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris – where the legendary Louis Armstrong makes an appearance – Sid, with his distinctive and rhythmic German-American slang, leads the reader through a fascinating world alive with passion, music and the spirit of resistance.”
