Nov 9, 2022
Vancouver, BC – Langara College welcomes Rawi Hage, one of five finalists for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, as the College’s first Writer in Residence. Hage was shortlisted for this year’s Giller Prize, English Canadian fiction’s largest literary award, for his short story collection Stray Dogs.
“The opportunity to support and inspire students in their creative process, and in such a diverse, youthful environment, is rewarding and meaningful to me. I’m excited to be part of the Langara community,” said Hage.
The Writer in Residence program is made possible with a gift to the Langara College Foundation in honour of Gregory James Graham and is being hosted by the English department. It will provide an opportunity for the celebrated author to pursue his creative projects while also making him available to the College community for student mentorship, classroom visits, and a public reading for the wider community.
“This is an amazing opportunity for our students to gain access to a renowned Canadian author,” said Yusuf Varachia, Vice President, External Relations and Community Engagement. “Students benefit by having an opportunity to connect directly with Mr. Hage, and receive his mentorship and feedback outside of the context of formal classroom evaluation. He is a wonderful role model for our aspiring student writers.”
The Writer in Residence program will begin in January 2023 and run for approximately three months.
A jury citation for the The Giller Prize said: “The short stories in Rawi Hage’s Stray Dogs fuse spare, graceful language with world-spanning design. The writing is streamlined and confident, understated and wry. As the stories develop, we are confronted by their surprising, lifelike inevitability.”
The Giller Prize, founded in 1994 by Jack Rabinovitch, recognizes excellence in Canadian fiction – long format or short stories – and endowed a cash prize annually of $25,000.00, the largest purse for literature in Canada. In 2005, Scotiabank created the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the purse increased from $25,000 to $50,000, grew again in 2008 to $70,000, and increased to $140,000 in 2014.
About Rawi Hage
Rawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war during the 1970s and 1980s. He immigrated to Canada in 1992 and now lives in Montreal. His first novel, De Niro’s Game, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for the best English-language book published anywhere in the world in a given year, and has either won or been shortlisted for seven other major awards and prizes, including the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award. Cockroach was the winner of the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. It was also shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Award and the Giller Prize. His third novel, Carnival, told from the perspective of a taxi driver, was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Award and won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. His work has been translated into 30 languages.
About snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ Langara College
Langara College is located on the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam First Nation. Langara was honoured to receive a name from Musqueam in their language, snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓, which means house of teachings. Langara is one of BC’s leading undergraduate post-secondary institutions providing University Studies, Career Studies, and Continuing Studies programs and courses to more than 23,000 students annually. Langara’s accounting related courses are accredited as transfer credit to the Chartered Professional Accountants program of professional studies.
Learn more.
Mark Dawson
Manager, Public Affairs
Langara College
mdawson@langara.ca
