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

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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