THE PENS LOSE A MIGHTY SWORD
Literary community in mourning over the death of Jack Rabinovitch, founder of the prestigious Giller Prize and tireless champion of Canadian authors
“The Giller Prize did what he hoped it would do: It shone a spotlight on fiction writing in Canada.” MARGARET ATWOOD
Canada’s literary community has lost one of its most influential champions: Jack Rabinovitch, the beloved Toronto businessman who founded the country’s preeminent literary award — the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize — has died at age 87.
Rabinovitch founded the Giller Prize in 1994, in honour of his late wife, Doris Giller, who was once a books editor at the Toronto Star. Giller died from cancer the year before.
The prize honours excellence in Canadian fiction — only novels or short story collections are eligible — and has had an astonishing effect on Canada’s literary community, said Florence Richler, a longtime friend and wife of late author Mordecai Richler.
“It was really quite remarkable,” she said. “He appointed such fine judges, he took literature very seriously. It was very, very special indeed.”
Over the past two decades, the Giller Prize has boosted the careers and book sales of many Canadian fiction authors. The winner now takes home $100,000, making the Giller the most lucrative literary award in the country. Past winners include Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler and Margaret Atwood.
“Jack was a fine human being and it was a pleasure and an honour to have known him,” Atwood said in an email. “The Giller Prize did what he hoped it would do: It shone a spotlight on fiction writing in Canada.”
Friends remember Rabinovitch for his “infectious personality,” wonderful stories, vast network of friendships and enduring sense of fun.
“He was someone who really connected with people, and I think the people who knew him just adored him,” said Bob Rae, a close friend of Rabinovitch and a former premier of Ontario. Rae was with Rabinovitch’s family during his friend’s final days.
Rabinovitch was a “gregarious” and loyal man, Rae said, with a great sense of humour and deep love for friends and family. He’d made an “enormous” contribution to Canadian literature, both publicly and privately.
“He did a lot of things that people weren’t aware of,” Rae said. “He provided a lot of support for people, a lot of encouragement, a lot of help, anonymously and quietly to a lot of Canadian writers.”
The idea for the Giller Prize was conceived over drinks and lunches with Mordecai Richler after Doris Giller died. “They had many hours together talking about what would have pleased Doris most of all, and it was Mordecai who suggested a fiction prize,” said Florence Richler.
“Jack was of course quite broken after Doris’s passing, and this was a wonderful thing to express his devotion and loyalty to her.”
M.G. Vassanji won the inaugural Giller Prize for The Book of Secrets in 1994, and Madeleine Thien won in 2016 for her novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing. The prize purse started at $25,000. In 2005, the award teamed up with Scotiabank. By 2014, the purse has increased to $140,000.
But speaking to the Star that year, Rabinovitch said that “at the heart of it has been the writing.”
“I’m here at McGill and when I graduated there wasn’t a single course in Canadian literature. Today, there are many,” he said. “I don’t know whether the prize itself contributed . . . but what I think happens is that you begin to have a national identity, and people feel that they can write about their own country and their own feelings as Canadians, and do it in a Canadian way and that there’s a market for it.”
The black-tie Giller gala, broadcast on the CBC, is an annual highlight in Canada’s literary world. At the event, Rabinovitch’s signature line was always: “For the price of a dinner in this town you can buy all the nominated books. So, eat at home and buy the books.”
Rabinovitch is survived by his three daughters — Noni, Daphna and Ela- na — and three grandchildren, Jacob, Saffi and Luca. He died Sunday at Sunnybrook Hospital, surrounded by family, friends and his partner, Judy Clarke. His death was the result of injuries suffered in a fall down stairs at home. The funeral will be held Wednesday.
“Jack grew up as one of ‘St. Urbain’s Horsemen,’ and often joked that he learned his math skills selling news- papers with his father at the corner of Ontario and St. Lawrence streets in Montreal,” a statement on the Giller Prize website said, referring to Richler’s 1971 novel about the hardscrabble Jewish neighbourhood in Montreal where they grew up.
Rabinovitch was an adviser during the building of the new Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.
On social media, politicians, writers and members of the literary community expressed their condolences.
“We will miss him!!!” tweeted former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, who was on the Giller Prize jury in 2006.
“Jack Rabinovitch — business leader, philanthropist, arts supporter extraordinaire, & gentleman. We will miss him,” tweeted Mayor John Tory.
Brad Martin, president and CEO of Penguin Random House Canada called the Giller “Canada’s preeminent literary prize.”
“Jack has been a great friend to authors and to everyone in the book industry, and he will be greatly missed,” Martin said.
“I think the first word that comes to mind is a gentleman. There was something very kind of chivalrous and old world about him,” said Irish novelist John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and a member of the 2015 Giller jury.
“He cared so much about books, about writers … That’s the kind of philanthropy and artistic philanthropy that you don’t really come across that often in the world.”
Born and raised in Montreal, Rabinovitch studied at McGill University where his love of literature blossomed. He graduated with a BA in honours English in 1952.
After working as a reporter and a speech writer, he entered the worlds of food retailing and distribution, then building and real estate development. He moved to Toronto from Montreal in the 1980s. In 1986, he became executive vice-president of property development company Trizec Corp. and joined the board of the Princess Margaret Hospital. He was also on the Board of the MaRS (Medical and Related Science) project.
Rabinovitch eventually became president of Nodel Investments Ltd., a real estate/venture capital firm. He became an officer of the Order of Canada in 2009.
According to the prize’s website, more than 2.5 million Giller-nominated books were sold in the first 10 years of the award, resulting in headlines about the so-called “Giller effect” on finalists.