Is Oblique Solidarity Enough?

Rethinking the 2024 (Scotiabank) Giller Prize Controversy

Authors

  • Laura Moss

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/canlit.vi264.200858

Keywords:

oblique solidarity, solidarity, CanLit Responds, CanLit controversy, Anne Michaels, Held, (Scotiabank) Giller Prize, No Arms in the Arts

Abstract

This essay asks “Is oblique solidarity enough?” in response to Anne Michaels’ multiple declarations of solidarity in her acceptance speech for the 2024 Giller Prize. Michaels’ novel, Held, won in the context of a year-long controversy around the continued sponsorship of the prize by Scotiabank—with its investment in an Israeli arms manufacturing company—that resulted in calls for the Giller Foundation and other arts organizations sponsored by the bank to divest. Indeed, as the war in Palestine worsened, many writers boycotted the 2024 Giller Prize altogether. Arguing for the significance of this fractured time in Canadian literary history, this essay archives the controversy and closely reads Michaels’ acceptance speech beside the work of CanLit Responds, No Arms in the Arts, Omar El Akkad in One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, and others. This is an essay about the limits of solidarity, the work of community organization, and the voice of the artist in times of crisis.

Author Biography

Laura Moss

Laura Moss is a professor of Canadian and African literatures in the Department of English Language and Literatures at UBC. She served as associate editor (reviews) of Canadian Literature from 2004 to 2015 and as acting editor in 2008 and from 2013 to 2014. From 2015 to 2020, she served as editor-in-chief of the journal and as co-editor of the CanLit Guides project. In addition to seven edited books, Moss has published articles on the work of Rita Wong, M. G. Vassanji, Kathleen Winter, Margaret Atwood, Rohinton Mistry, and Annabel Soutar, among others, and has written on literary pedagogy, public arts policy in Canada, multiculturalism policy, seed practices, and public memorials in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Her current research concerns environmental art and activism in Canada.

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Published

Jul. 16, 2026 (UTC)

How to Cite

Moss, Laura. “Is Oblique Solidarity Enough? Rethinking the 2024 (Scotiabank) Giller Prize Controversy”. Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, no. 264, July 2026, pp. 23-42, doi:10.14288/canlit.vi264.200858.

Issue

No. 264 (2026): Solidarity: Aesthetics, Politics, Pedagogies

Section

Articles