Scotiabank Giller Prize Spotlight:
Tanya Tagaq
Tanya Tagaq
September 23, 2018
Tanya Tagaq is an improvisational performer, avant-garde composer, and experimental recording artist who won the 2014 Polaris Music Prize for her album Animism, a work that disrupted the music world in Canada and beyond with its powerfully original vision. Tanya’s most recent album Retribution was released in fall 2016. Split Tooth is her first novel.
Tanya has been selected for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist for her novel, Split Tooth.
What/who inspires you to write?
My five senses and a desperation to cope with our inevitable demise by documenting my own reality.
Do you have a favourite passage/quote from a book?
This question is hard because many words have altered me.
Right now the words are these:
Recall (ii) Word made Voice
The child was born out of wedlock
Naturally.
The child came from another land
Of course
The child’s lungs were larger than
Wolves.
The child’s limbs would not walk
They Shiva.
The child sang and sang
And sang
He played drums with the bone
Of his body.
His hands learned the wand of flourish
He stamped his feet when he spoke
Everyone listened
No one heard a thing.
Roger Bonair-Agard
Where is your favourite place to write?
Airplanes/tour vans.
Is there an activity you do to help inspire your writing?
Mostly crying.
Do you have a tradition for every time you finish a book?
Not yet.
What are you reading now?
Bury My Clothes by Roger Bonair-Agard.
What is your favourite CanLit read?
Kiss of the Fur Queen by Thompson Highway.
What inspired you to write your Scotiabank Giller Prize nominated book?
Existential crisis.
What do you hope readers take away from your book?
Every individual will take away something different. I don’t want control of that. Nor do I want to lend direction.