Montreal writer wins GG award

Madeleine Thien’s novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing achieved an unprecedented sweep of book-prize shortlistings this year. It has won in the English-language fiction category of the first of those major prizes to be announced, the Governor General’s Literary Awards. “I literally burst into tears when the Canada Council told me,” the Montreal writer said from Vancouver, where she was appearing at that city’s Writers Fest. “There’s something very special about the GGs. … It’s more moving to me than any other prize, I think. I feel incredibly fortunate.”