Ian Williams has won the $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his debut novel ``Reproduction.''
Williams received the honour at a glittering Toronto gala Monday night.
``Reproduction'' traces the ties that bind a cross-cultural chosen family in Williams' hometown of Brampton, Ont.
The tale begins when a sober-minded teenager from a small island nation and the listless heir to a German family fortune meet in the hospital room where their mothers lay dying.
From there, Williams unspools a narrative so entangled it strains against novelistic convention.
Jury members praised the Vancouver-based writer for his ``masterful unfolding of unexpected connections and collisions between and across lives otherwise separated by race, class, gender and geography.''
``Reproduction,'' published by Random House Canada, was a finalist for this year's Amazon First Novel Award.
Williams' short-fiction collection, ``Not Anyone's Anything'' won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award in 2012, and he's been a rising star in poetry circles. His 2013 collection, ``Personals,'' was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award.
Williams was the 2014-2015 writer-in-residence in the University of Calgary's distinguished writers programme, and has held numerous other fellowships and residencies.
He is currently a Griffin Poetry Prize trustee and associate professor of poetry in University of British Columbia's creative writing program.
Williams beat out titles by David Bezmozgis, Michael Crummey, Megan Gail Coles, Alix Ohlin and Steven Price.
Before the Giller winner was announced, a who's who of Canada's cultural scene walked the Giller red carpet at the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto.
Singer-songwriter and actress Jann Arden hosted the night's festivities, which were broadcast on CBC.
The six finalists were chosen from 117 submissions by a jury consisting of Canadian writers Donna Bailey Nurse, Randy Boyagoda and Jose Teodoro, Scottish-Sierra Leonean author Aminatta Forna and Bosnian-American author Aleksandar (Sasha) Hemon.
The Giller awards $100,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English, and $10,000 to each of the finalists.
Last year's winner was Esi Edugyan for ``Washington Black.''