Russel Banks: Giller Juror, Honourary Canadian

By Torontoist

With all the attention on tonight’s lavish Scotiabank-Giller Prize banquet and the five authors feted therein, it’s easy to overlook the three people whose combined effort made the evening’s climactic trip to the podium possible: the jurors. This year’s jury was as eclectic (and international) as they come, comprised of Cape Breton author Alistair MacLeod and two non-Canadians, British biographer and novelist Victoria Glendinning and American novelist Russell Banks. Torontoist Books editor James Grainger sat down with Banks, author of such novels as The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction, and Cloudsplitter, at the Four Seasons bar last night and asked the author-turned-juror about making the trip north to judge a Canadian fiction prize. READ MORE >>