The winner of the C$100,000 (about US$75,900) Scotiabank Giller Prize is Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (Knopf).
The jury wrote: "How often history asks us to underestimate those trapped there. This remarkable novel imagines what happens when a black man escapes history's inevitable clasp--in his case, in a hot air balloon no less. Washington Black, the hero of Esi Edugyan's novel is born in the 1800s in Barbados with a quick mind, a curious eye, and a yearning for adventure. In conjuring Black's vivid and complex world--as cruel empires begin to crumble and the frontiers of science open like astounding vistas--Edugyan has written a supremely engrossing novel about friendship and love and the way identity is sometimes a far more vital act of imagination than the age in which one lives."
Edugyan also won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2011 for Half-Blood Blues.
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The longlist for the 2019 Aspen Words Literary Prize has been announced and can be seen here. The titles include 11 novels, five story collections and 13 debut authors. The $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize is given to "an influential work of fiction focused on vital contemporary issues."
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Patricia Flam's's Daniel and the Infinite Stuff (middle grade novel) won the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators' Sue Alexander Award, which was chosen from manuscripts submitted for individual critiques by editors and agents at the SCBWI Annual Conference in Los Angeles. The prize is given to "the manuscript deemed most promising for publication." She will have her synopsis presented to a group of editors and agents. Melanie Dearman's Atlanta/Pacifica was the runner-up.