Established by Toronto City Council in 1974, The Toronto Book Awards honour authors of books of literary or artistic merit that are evocative of Toronto and The Hungry Ghosts was one of the five finalists.
In honour of the 40th anniversary of these awards, each shortlisted book was also paired with a Toronto champion who promoted the book via social media and gave an introduction at the awards ceremony—Shyam’s champion was filmmaker John Greyson.
Watch Shyam discuss The Hungry Ghosts in this special Toronto Book Awards author video – and see, too, John Greyson advocate for Shyam’s work and for this “epic and personal” novel in particular.