It’s the year of the short story here in Canada! Less than a month after Alice Munro won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, Edmonton’s Lynn Coady has won the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her short story collection, Hellgoing (House of Anansi Press).

The $50,000 prize recognizes the year’s best book in Canadian fiction, and marks Coady’s first win. Her last novel, The Antagonist, made the Giller shortlist in 2011. Hellgoing is Coady’s sixth book.

In her emotional victory speech, Coady  said that she’s “proud not just to be a Canadian writer, but to be a Canadian – to live in a country where we treat our writers like movie stars.”

This year’s jury members — author Margaret Atwood, Esi Edugyan (winner of the 2011 Giller Prize) and Jonathan Lethem — praised the collection for having a “keen and sympathetic wit”.

Indie Canadian publisher House of Anansi is also celebrating their first win. After having 13 books reach the shortlist during the 20 year history of the award, Hellgoing is their first time snagging top prize.

Have you read Hellgoing or any of Lynn Coady’s previous books? Will you be checking it out now that it won the Giller Prize? Let us know in the comments below!