At Toronto's Scotiabank Centre today (October 1), the Scotiabank Giller Prize jury announced the 2018 shortlist at an event hosted by CBC Radio's Gill Deacon.

Five titles were selected from a longlist of 12 books that had been announced on September 17. The longlist has been taken from 114 titles that had been submitted by Canadian publishers.

The shortlist includes the following novels:

• Patrick deWitt, French Exit (House of Anansi Press)

• Eric Dupont, Songs for the Cold of Heart, translated by Peter McCambridge (QC Fiction, an imprint of Baraka Books)

• Esi Edugyan, Washington Black (Patrick Crean Editions, an imprint of HarperCollins Canada

• Sheila Heti, Motherhood (Knopf Canada)

• Thea Lim, An Ocean of Minutes (Viking Canada)

B.C.–related authors include deWitt, who was born on Vancouver Island.

He had previously been shortlised for the literary prize in 2011 for The Sisters Brothers. A film adaptation of that novel, directed by Jacques Audiard, is screening at the 2018 Vancouver International Film Festival on October 7.

Also from B.C. is Edi Edugyan, who lives in Victoria.

Her novel Washington Black is currently also shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. She previously won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2011 for Half-Blood Blues. 

A series of readings entitled Between the Pages will be held across the country, as well as in New York City and London, U.K., featuring this year's shortlisted authors. A Between the Pages event will be held at the Vancouver Playhouse on October 15.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize Gala, which is celebrating its 25^th anniversary, will be held and air on CBC TV on November 19, hosted by comedian Rick Mercer. The jury consists of Kamal Al-Solaylee, Maxine Bailey, Philip Hensher and Heather O'Neill.