Eddy Boudel Tan’s novel, The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, has been longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize.

Eddy has been a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the ReLit Best Novel Award, and the Ferro-Grumley Award for his novels After Elias and The Rebellious Tide. He was named a Rising Star by Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2021. His short stories can be found in Joyland, Yolk, and various literary journals and anthologies. The Tiger and the Cosmonaut is his third novel. He lives in Vancouver with his husband.

What’s the first piece of writing you had published?

I wrote a short story in the ninth grade called Glossy Paper and Traumatized Squirrels (for real) that was published in the school district’s creative writing anthology. It was very meta and thus ahead of its time, but don’t expect it to surface in a collection anytime soon.

When did you first come up with the idea for your book?

I’d been wanting to write a novel about being second-generation Canadian, the experience of feeling caught between cultures and expectations. My first attempt at this was a story about a sibling rivalry set amid a neighbourhood battle against gentrification, which I ended up shelving. I decided to approach the subject from a dramatically different angle with The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, in large part because at the time I was struggling to come to terms with the fact that my parents were rapidly aging—it felt like I was running out of time to make up for everything they sacrificed while immigrating to Canada to give me and my brothers a more prosperous life—and so this book reflects that same urgency and poignance.

What advice would you have for someone struggling to make time to write?

The trick is to persist. Keep going, one word at a time.

What’s the last great book you read by a Canadian author?

Crooked Teeth, a queer Syrian refugee memoir by Danny Ramadan, truly moved me while challenging me to confront my biases. It’s a brilliant, soulful, powerful book.

Who’s your favourite character in your longlisted book and why?

Ricky Han, the protagonist’s older brother. Society seems to expect Asian Canadians to fit a certain mould: obedient, polite, submissive, perhaps a little meek. Ricky possesses none of these qualities, and he’s my way of showing the world that Asian Canadians are more than what society expects of us. We can be reckless, aggressive, and loud, just like anyone else.

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