MD's debut work wins Giller Prize
Stories of med-school graduates earn Vincent Lam prestigious literary award
Article by James Adams, Globe and Mail
November 8, 2006
collection of 12 short stories about a quartet of University of Toronto medical school graduates has won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize for excellence in English-language Canadian fiction.
Torontonian Vincent Lam, himself an emergency-room physician, received the $40,000 prize and a small bronze statue at a lavish, televised gala at Toronto's Four Seasons Hotel last night. His book, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, a debut work, beat out four other finalists — two women and two men — for Canada's richest literary prize. Each runner-up receives $2,500.
In his acceptance speech, Dr. Lam, 32, thanked his wife, his agent Anne McDermid, his publishers Doubleday Canada and Margaret Atwood.
In fact, Ms. Atwood, a Giller winner herself in 1996, presented Dr. Lam with the prize. The 2006 winner said he plans to use his new largesse to give him more time to write.
© The Globe and Mail 2006