Ottawa writer Elizabeth Hay has won the Giller Prize for her novel “Late Nights on Air,” a comic-tragic tale about the workers at a small radio station in the Canadian North.

The $40,000 Giller Prize, Canada’s richest literary award, was presented Tuesday at a gala in Toronto.

“I’m very thrilled and very lucky,” Hay said as she accepted the award, jokingly adding, “So lucky in fact, I’ll probably be hit by a truck tomorrow.”

She added, “I’d like to congratulate everyone who has written a book this year, because we are all united in the belief that writing books and reading books makes life more meaningful.”

Hay, 55, described her winning book as “a man hears a voice on the radio and falls in love.”

Though it is not autobiographical, Hay said she drew from her experiences working as a CBC Radio journalist in Yellowknife in the 1970s.

The jury members, authors David Bergen, Lorna Goodison and Camilla Gibb, called Hay’s novel “flawlessly crafted, a timeless story masterfully told.”

“What a cast of characters,” said Bergen. “It’s as if she took a cast of characters and she found a room to put them in and that room is the North.”

The other Giller finalists this year were M.G. Vassanji for “The Assassin’s Song,” Michael Ondaatje for “Divisadero,” Daniel Poliquin for “A Secret Between Us” and Alissa York for “Effigy.” They receive $2,500 each.

The Giller Prize honours the best in Canadian fiction. It was created in 1994 by businessman Jack Rabinovitch, in memory of his late wife and literary journalist Doris Giller.

Past winners have included such Canadian icons as Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler and Alice Munro.






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