A book cover titled Death by a Thousand Cuts by Shashi Bhat. To the left of the book cover is a photo of Shashi Bhat. To the right of the book cover is a photo of Karma Brown.

[Video] The Giller Book Club: Death by a Thousand Cuts

Published On: March 19th, 2025

On March 18, 2025, we hosted the Giller Book Club with Shashi Bhat and Karma Brown. Shashi is the author of DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS which was longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize. Karma is the author of WHAT WILD WOMEN DO.

About DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS, published by McClelland & Stewart:
A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers.

With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman’s relationships with others and with herself.

About WHAT WILD WOMEN DO, published by Viking:
Rowan is stuck. Her dreams of becoming a screenwriter are stalled, along with her bank account, as she and her fiancĂ© Seth try to make sense of what’s next for them after leaving LA. But when the couple takes a trip to a cabin in the Adirondacks, hoping the change will provide inspiration for Seth’s novel-in-progress, Rowan finds herself drawn into a story greater than her own—that of socialite-turned-feminist-crusader Eddie Calloway, who vanished one day in 1975 and was never found or heard from again. In a handbook left behind in the abandoned ruins of a once great camp, Rowan starts to discover clues to what happened to Eddie.

As Rowan delves deeper into the mystery, we meet Eddie herself, a fierce and loving woman whose greatest wish was to host women at her camp and unlock their “wildness.” However, Eddie’s wild ways aren’t welcomed by everyone, and rifts between camp owners threaten her mission. When Rowan gets closer to the truth of Eddie’s disappearance, she realizes that it may hold the key to unlocking her own ambition and future.

Please visit gillerprize.ca/giller-book-club to learn about upcoming book clubs.

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Important Dates

  • Submission Deadline 1:
    February 14, 2025
  • Submission Deadline 2:
    April 17, 2025
  • Submission Deadline 3:
    June 20, 2025
  • Submission Deadline 4:
    August 15, 2025
  • Longlist Announcement:
    September 15, 2025
  • Shortlist Announcement:
    October 6, 2025
  • Winner Announcement:
    November 17, 2025
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