Souvankham Thammavongsa has won the 2025 Giller Prize, given annually to an outstanding work of Canadian fiction, for her novel, Pick a Color.
Thammavongsa’s novel, published in September by Little, Brown, follows a day in the life of Ning, a retired boxer who works as a nail salon manager. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “This exceptional novel, honed sharp as cuticle nippers, contains great wit and quick turns, up to the last sentence.”
Thammavongsa won the Giller Prize in 2020 for her short story collection, How To Pronounce Knife.
In the citation for the award, the prize jury wrote, “With an inimitable style that decentralizes the English language, crackling wit, and profound confidence, author Souvankham Thammavongsa challenges our biases and insists that we never look at a nail salon, or its workers, the same way again. A master of form and restraint, Thammavongsa once again affirms her place as one of the most vital literary voices of our time.”
In her acceptance speech, Thammavongsa said, “When I was a kid, I didn’t know how to become a writer. My mom and dad are not writers. I printed and bound my own books, sold them out of my school knapsack on front lawns, at farmers markets, and at small-press fairs. Thank you to anyone who has ever bought a book that I made.”
The Giller Prize, which comes with a cash award of 100,000 Canadian dollars—about 71,000 U.S. dollars—was established in 1994. Previous winners include Margaret Atwood for Alias Grace, Alice Munro for The Love of a Good Woman and Runaway, and Anne Michaels for Held.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
