This year’s winners of Canada’s two biggest literary awards belong to a similar demographic: middle-aged writers who have toiled in relative obscurity throughout their careers, “producing novels that are tight, spare in length and written in a distinctive style” without ever capturing more than a cult following. All that has changed now for Giller winner David Bergen and Governor-General’s Award winner David Gilmour, and both authors admit to a certain feeling of redemption after years of disappointment. “The real enemy for a writer, it’s not booze. It’s vanity that will kill you deader than anything else.”