The Audlib Project

We asked five celebrated Canadian storytellers to explore home, as inspired by the creativity of their nominated work. They responded with an audio experience unlike any other, weaving together the lives and shared experiences of neighbours in an apartment building in Canada. A single rose bush in a courtyard serves as the centerpiece for a sequence of stories of vastly different lives with unexpected connections. A young girl dares to test her limits of safety, a woman is pained by a tragic loss and the stigma she now carries because of it, and a neighbour wishes for connection and understanding in a deeply divided time. An expat yearns to be closer to her treasured family members, and a café owner grapples with the changes that gradually eat away at her in small but significant ways. The five finalists of the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize were tasked with creating an original story linked through a shared environment: a building with windows overlooking a rose bush in a communal court