TORONTO, (Reuters) – Trinidad-born author Andre Alexis on Tuesday won Canada’s Giller Prize, the country’s richest fiction award, for his novel “Fifteen Dogs”, about a group of animals at a Toronto veterinary clinic who gain human consciousness and language.
The C$100,000 ($75,540.11) prize was awarded by a jury that included Irish author John Boyne, Canadian writers Cecil Foster, Alexander MacLeod and Alison Pick, and British author Helen Oyeyemi.
The jury said the novel is “a wonderful and original piece of writing that challenges the reader to examine their own existence and recall the age old question, what’s the meaning of life?”
Alexis was previously shortlisted for the Giller for his novel “Childhood”. His other books include “Asylum”, “Ingrid & the Wolf” and “Pastoral”.