“You cannot achieve peace in the Middle East by destroying a literary arts organization”: Elana Rabinovitch on protests against the Giller Prize
The executive director of the Gillers discusses the prize’s controversial lead sponsor, her response to demands made by more than 1,500 Canadian authors, and the relationship between literature and dissent
At last year’s Giller Prize, two protesters rushed the stage carrying signs that read “Scotiabank funds genocide.” Seconds later, a third protester yelled, “Scotiabank currently has a $500 million stake in Elbit Systems,” calling out the relationship between the Gillers’ lead sponsor and one of Israel’s largest arms manufacturers.
The demonstration was—depending on whom you ask—either a necessary moment of reckoning or an awkward collision of art and politics. The police intervened, and three protesters were charged. Within two weeks, more than 1,500 authors had signed a petition calling on the Giller Foundation to cut ties with Scotiabank. Since then, two judges have resigned from the Giller Prize jury, and more than 30 authors have pulled their books from consideration for the 2024 awards, which will take place on November 18.
Founded in 1993 by Canadian businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late literature-loving wife, Doris Giller, the $100,000 purse is the country’s most lucrative literary prize. Jack’s daughter, Elana Rabinovitch, has been executive director since 2004 and believes that her non-profit has been put in an unreasonable position. Here, she speaks about the fallout from the foundation’s financial ties and the role of political protest in the arts.
Let’s start by going back to last year’s event, when protesters appeared on stage within the first couple minutes of the awards ceremony and live broadcast. What was going through your mind at that moment? I guess I would say it was all a bit disorienting. And then it was just, How do we get this back on track as quickly as possible? That was the most important thing. I was sitting at my table, so I wasn’t in contact with the evening’s producers or anything like that. I think host Rick Mercer probably made some clever quip, I just don’t remember what it was. And then we just kept calm and carried on. It was either that or fade to black, which we didn’t want. The Giller Prize is about honouring the work of the writers who were in the room that night, so we wanted to ensure that they felt comfortable and safe.
Three protesters were charged with using fake credentials to get into the event and interfering with the lawful use of property. Do you have a position on that? I know there have been rumours going around about this, so I am happy to clear them up: I did not call the police. I did not speak to the police. I have not been in contact with police since the ceremony. I have no knowledge of whether there are charges or whom the charges were laid against.
You issued a statement the day after the awards saying that the protesters showed “disrespect to Canadian authors and their literary achievements.” Is that the key issue here? Or is it the politicization of an awards celebration? Or the specific position of these protesters? I fully respect the right of writers to express themselves. Great literature is often about dissent and disagreement and exploring and interrogating different ideas. Freedom of expression is something the Giller Foundation promotes and is fundamental to any democracy and the writing world. Protest has a place in every society.
Is that place on stage at the Gillers? I’m not sure it was the best place. I think there may be more effective ways of expressing protest. Again, I just wanted to make sure that the night was about the books and the authors.
You mentioned the importance of freedom of expression. Sarah Bernstein, last year’s winner for her novel Study for Obedience, later withdrew from her appearance at the Giller book club. She says she was told that any conversation about Gaza would be edited out of the event coverage. The Giller Prize would never censor, ban, burn, edit or in any way tell a writer what they can and cannot say. The incident you’re referring to happened during a tech rehearsal for the virtual book club. At one point, the moderator asked what would happen if there were questions about Gaza. The person who was leading the tech rehearsal answered that close to 1,000 people had signed up to hear Sarah talk about her book and that that was what they wanted to hear about. Nobody said anything about editing anything out. It was just that we were keeping the focus on the book. Because it’s a book club!
More than 1,500 authors have since signed a petition calling for the Gillers to cut ties with Scotiabank. Two judges resigned from the jury, and more than 30 authors who published books in 2024 pulled them from consideration for this year’s prize. Were you surprised by the reaction? As I said, I am fully in support of the right to protest. I guess my question would be: if the issue is with Scotiabank’s investments, then perhaps the more effective path would be to go to Scotiabank.
Isn’t it possible that, as members of the Canadian literary community, they might feel they have more influence with a Canadian arts organization than with a multinational bank? I think that is a good question to ask them. The other thing I would say is that the Canadian literary community is bigger than you might think, and there are a lot of authors out there who didn’t sign petitions and aren’t participating in protests. They just want to have their books read. I have received an outpouring of support—private messages from people in and outside of the literary community.
Can you share any names? I think writers can speak for themselves.
In April, you sent a note to publishers asking that all authors who were submitting their books for the 2024 prize be willing to honour the nomination and related commitments (the ceremony itself as well as some post-award publicity). Was that strong-arming? No. We made that request to make sure that the writers who were going to be on the list were interested in honouring the nomination and the commitments that come with it, because if they weren’t, there were other writers who would be. Being nominated can be hugely meaningful—not just for the winning author but even for shortlisted and longlisted authors. They gain attention that they might normally not have gained. I have heard from so many writers over the years about how the prize put them on the map. So it’s really about fairness. And the authors who withdrew their books, the authors who have been vocally critical of our ties with Scotiabank, those writers will be welcome to submit work in the future. There’s no recrimination, there’s no censorship, there’s no blacklisting.
The Giller Foundation has so far not taken any position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Author Omar El Akkad, who won the Giller in 2021, expressed the view that your silence has been louder than any stand you might take. What do you think? I think there are more than two sides to this conflict. There is nuance, and there is room for conversation and civil discourse, but I also think that my own views are my own. The Giller Awards is not an advocacy group or a political organization. We are a literary foundation that celebrates excellence in Canadian fiction, and now I’m being asked by many writers to change that and to make the awards into something that they’re not. I think what I find disturbing about the protests is that there’s a kind of authoritarianism about it, an insistence on making statements and picking sides. The Giller Foundation wasn’t asked to take a side in the climate debate or the fallout from 9/11. I haven’t been asked as a woman to comment on the very valid concerns of the #MeToo movement.
In September, the Giller Foundation announced its plan to drop the name Scotiabank from the Giller Prize but to maintain the financial relationship, which feels like a solution bound to please no one. What was the thinking there? It’s about going back to grassroots. We are the Giller Prize—that’s how we started. We did a thorough review of all possibilities, and the decision was made to stay with Scotiabank as our lead sponsor while removing the name from the awards title to keep the focus on writers and the writing.
When you say you reviewed all possibilities—what about finding a new sponsor? Legal contracts are not easy to break. Our contract with Scotiabank ends at the end of next year, and we’re reviewing sponsorship possibilities.
So if a corporate sponsor with zero problematic ties suddenly offered to fund the prize, would that be ideal? That’s an impossible question to answer.
Because arts funding in Canada is so hard to come by? It’s a hypothetical that I really can’t answer. Arts funding is in free fall everywhere. It’s very difficult for arts organizations to gain funding. We’ve made no secret of the fact that we are still with Scotiabank, and we will consider our options for the future.
I’m sure you are aware that Scotiabank has significantly divested from Elbit in the past several months. Is that not a sign that the pressure coming from protesters has been effective? I am not familiar with how banks make investment decisions. I think it is complicated, and in this particular case with a third party attached to the bank, it’s even more complicated. So I don’t know.
The Gillers are not the only Canadian arts foundation with problematic corporate sponsors. Do you think there is any truth to the notion that part of why you are being targeted is because you are Jewish? It has been borne out that antisemitism is on the rise, but so is all kinds of hatred, including Islamophobia, and again, I would turn your attention back to the role of literature in situations like this, which is to interrogate hate and certitude and ideas that people are conflicted about. If there is a through line between this year’s shortlist of nominees, it’s a willingness to interrogate difficult themes without certitude or dogma. They all explore ideas that don’t have neat and tidy endings. They offer themes that are timeless yet distinctly of the moment.
Are there aspects of this situation that feel unfair to you? I really do believe that this isn’t about me. There are a lot of people out there struggling right now. There are far worse hardships than anything the Giller Foundation might be going through. I’m concerned about the writers we strive to honour every year and the legacy of this award that has done so much for Canadian publishing over the past three decades. I think maybe some younger writers don’t fully understand what it was like to champion Canadian publishing before the glory days of writers like Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, Leonard Cohen, but that was Jack’s idea. My father’s goal when he set up the Giller was to give Canadian writers a spotlight in Canada and abroad, which was very much lacking. A few decades ago, the idea of publishing a book that the rest of the world might celebrate wasn’t even the goal—just getting a book published was beyond the dream of most writers. Today we have an industry, we have writers who are cultural icons, we have many different vehicles for showcasing authors. That was speculative fiction back in the day.
Are you talking about Bookstagram? Bookstagram, BookTok and other awards honouring Canadian authors. None of that existed when my dad started the Gillers. Today I think there is a tendency to take these things for granted, but I am worried about preservation for the future. You cannot achieve peace in the Middle East by destroying a literary arts organization. It’s easy to destroy things. It’s much harder to build something up. Writers write in peace and in war, with public success and private failure. Their work is not judged by how chaotic the world is. They are judged by how they compose ink on paper. If others want to engage in global politics, let them. If they don’t want to participate in the prize, that’s okay. If any of the writers who withheld their books this year write a great book next year, I will read it anyway, regardless of whether they submit it for the prize.
