Giller Prize

This year's Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada's major literary prize, goes to Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden, a tale of aboriginal culture's urban-rural divide. Boyden will get CN$50,000 (US$41,600).

As reported in Globe & Mail, Boyden commented, "What I'm most excited by is being allowed to give voice to a segment of the first nations population that I'm so impassioned by and so in love with and so a part of." He plans to spend some of the prize money to create "a fellowship for young students in Moose Factory and the Georgian Bay area, native students, to help them get into university."

Viking has the book scheduled for March 2009 release in the U.S.