Annal:2003 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Governor General's Literary Award in the year 2003. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Elle: A Novel
- 2003 Governor General's winner
- 2005 IMPAC Dublin shortlist
- Score: 16.53
Douglas Glover tells of a Rabelaisian riff on a dramatic historical event: the story of Marguerite de la Rocque, niece of the vicious Sieur de Roberval. Having caught her in the arms of her lover, Roberval set the lustful pair and Marguerite’s nurse ashore on the desolate Isle of Demons. Many months later, after her nurse, her lover, and her newborn baby had all died, Marguerite was rescued by a passing ship and taken home to France. Of course, the plot is only the beginning. Elle is a Grand Guignol, a Brueghel painting in words. What with real bears,…
Oryx and Crake: A Novel
- 2004 Orange shortlist
- 2003 Booker shortlist
- 2003 Giller Prize shortlist
- 2003 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 24.54
A stunning and provocative new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize, Margaret Atwood’s new novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it. With breathtaking command of her shocking material and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into a conceivable future of our own world, an outlandish yet wholly believable place left devastated in the wake of scientific disaster and populated by characters who will continue to inhabit your dreams long after the book is closed.
Garbo Laughs: A novel
- 2003 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.53
Set in Ottawa in the 1990s, it is the quixotic tale of tall, thin Harriet Browning, inflamed by the movies she was deprived of as a child. Bent on seeing everything she has missed, she rapidly becomes so saturated with old movies, seen repeatedly and swallowed whole, that she no longer fits into this world. Equally addicted are her three companions-of-the-screen: a boy who loves Frank Sinatra, a girl with Bette Davis eyes, and an earthy sidekick named after Dinah Shore. Breaking in upon this quiet backwater, in time with the devastating ice storm of 1998, come two refugees from Hollywood, the jaded widow of a famous screenwriter and her movie-expert stepson.
Private View: A novel
- 2003 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.53
Set in contemporary London, it’s Bridget Jones meets Matthew Collings with a dash of pure Canadian angst thrown in. A talented young artist is trying to get over the death of her boyfriend on a disastrous trip to Central America. Blackly humorous, Jean McNeil’s deeply introspective style and her wild imagination are perfectly suited to this tale of modern Bohemia.
Ten Thousand Lovers: A novel
- 2003 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.53
Israel, 1970s. Lily, a young emigrant student exploring the wonders and terrors of her new land, finds the man of her dreams—Ami, a former actor. Handsome, intelligent, and exciting, but like his beautiful, disintegrating country, Ami has a terrible flaw—he is an army interrogator. As Ami and Lily’s unexpected passion grows, so too does the shadow that hangs over them. They must face the unspeakable horrors of Ami’s work and their uncertain future.
While set in the ’70s, Ten Thousand Lovers is a brilliant and terrifyingly contemporary tale of passion, suffering, and the transcending power of love.
