Canlit Responds, originally formed as the literary community’s protest against charges laid against demonstrators who disrupted the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize over it’s main sponsor’s substantial investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, has released a statement signed by 20 Canadian authors withdrawing their work from the 2024 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and refusing to participate in the Giller Foundation’s ongoing programming.
Fifteen authors have pulled their 2024 fiction releases from contention for the prize. The other five signatories are authors who have prior relationships to the prize – one is a former Giller winner, and the remaining authors have either been shortlisted or longlisted for the prize.
The letter states that the authors “cannot abide [their] work being used to provide cover for sponsors actively investing in arms funding and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians.”
The authors call on the Giller Foundation to “use their organizational leverage to pressure their main sponsor, Scotiabank, to fully divest from Elbit Systems” and to “cut ties with all funders directly invested in Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine, including the Azrieli Foundation, Indigo, and Audible.”
This is not the first call by authors (and the No Arms in the Arts coalition of culture workers) for Scotiabank to divest its investments in Elbit, or for The Giller Foundation to pressure its main sponsor. As of May 2024, Scotiabank has cut its stake in Elbit Systems by half.
The signatories state that their “goal is to truly win an arts and culture sector free from arms funding. Arts institutions cannot launder their moral reputations with empty statements calling too late for a ceasefire, or toothless guarantees that they will support authors’ free speech and right to protest.”
The authors include David Bergen (2005 Giller winner and multiple shortlistee, including for Away from the Dead in 2023), Noor Naga (shortlisted in 2022), Aimee Wall, André Forget, Catherine Hernandez, Farzana Doctor, Sheung-King, Jacob Wren, Nour Abi-Nakhoul, Colin Barrett, Frankie Barnet, Greg Rhyno, Jen Currin, Jess Taylor, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Julie Delporte, Kazim Ali, Lily Wang, and Sydney Hegele.
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