Announcing the Winners of the 2025 Trillium Book Awards!

The winners of the prestigious  Trillium Book Awards  have just been announced for 2025, with some fantastic established and emerging voices honored this year. This prestigious Award is the province’s leading award for literature.

Here are the winning titles for 2025:

Maurice Vellekoop won the Trillium Book Award.

Jake Byrne won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry.

Aristote Kavungu won the French Language Trillium Award.

And, Mireille Messier won the French Language Trillium Children's Book Award.

Established in 1987, the prize annually recognizes the best book and best poetry collection from writers in Ontario.  

The winners in both the English and French categories of the Trillium Book Award received $20,000, while the winner of the poetry category received $10,000. This year, the category for best book of children's literature in French was also awarded.

The full list of finalists for each category are below:

Trillium Book Award: 

Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
My Fighting Family: Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us by Morgan Campbell
Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin
Who Will Bury You? And Other Stories by Chido Muchemwa 
I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop

Trillium Book Award for Poetry:

The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful
DADDY by Jake Byrne
Terrarium by Matthew Walsh

Trillium Award (French Language): 

Céline in the Congo by Aristote Kavungu
Toronto never blue by Marie-Hélène Larochelle
The African Prince, the Translator and the Nazi by Didier Leclair
A heavy price to pay by Claire Ménard-Roussy
Nickel City Fifs: A Sudbury Queer Epic Against a Background of Holes  by Alex Tétreault 

Trillium Children's Book Award (French Language): 

Desert Rose by Michèle Laframboise
The Trash King by Eudes La Roche-Francoeur
The Magic Hat by Mireille Messier

Previous Trillium Award winners include  Margaret Atwood, Thomas King, Dionne Brand, and Téa Mutonji.

For more on the Trillium Awards, click here!