A gift to Canada

Jack Rabinovitch accomplished what once seemed impossible: he made CanLit sexy.

He did it with a big idea — creating the Giller Prize for Canadian fiction in memory of his late wife, Doris, a former books editor at the Montreal Star, Montreal Gazette and finally the Toronto Star.

And he did it with thousands of tiny gestures, starting with the red rose that comes with every invitation to the annual ceremony — a promise that the evening won’t be just one more bland institutional function.

He made the Giller both the most important literary award in Canada and a highly personal gesture of the love that he and Doris shared for writing and reading.

Rabinovitch died on Sunday at the ripe age of 87, full of honours and well deserving of the outpouring of praise coming his way. But his passing still came as a shock.

Until the end, his spirit infused the Gillers. He didn’t simply endow the award and then hand it off to others to manage. He made sure the announcement was a special party every year, with an open bar and a guest list that brings together leading figures in politics, media, business, fashion and, of course, publishing.

Crucially, he made sure the show would be televised live and actually be worth watching (the audience topped half a million at one point and was hosted one year by both Ben Mulroney and Justin Trudeau). That created the kind of excitement that had never been part of the staid world of Canadian writing. More than anyone else, he gave CanLit the zip it was badly missing.

Money was part of it. Rabinovitch grew up poor in the Montreal immortalized in the novels of his childhood friend Mordecai Richler — the once largely Jewish neighbourhood around “the Main.” He became wealthy in property development with the Bronfman family and moved with Doris to Toronto in the mid-1980s. As she once told a friend in her no-nonsense way: “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. And believe me, rich is better.”

After Doris died far too young in 1993, Rabinovitch worked with Richler to create the award bearing her name and made it worth $25,000 — an eye-catching amount at the time. Now, with the support of Scotiabank, the top prize is worth $100,000, substantial even by global standards.

Others have followed. Canada now has plenty of literary prizes, including major, well-funded awards for fiction, non-fiction, political writing and poetry, as well as the long-established Governor General’s awards. But almost a quarter-century after it was launched, the Giller is still the one that gets the most publicity and sells the most books. It changed the landscape of Canadian literature.

Those who benefit in the end are Canadian writers and those who love to read them. They, and the entire country, owe a special debt of gratitude to Jack Rabinovitch.

The literary community, and the country, owes a special debt of gratitude to Jack Rabinovitch