Governor General's Literary Award Lists Released, Including a Hat Trick for Rawi Hage

"Innovative, troubling, surprising and emotional" -- that dynamic list of qualities is how Simon Brault, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts, described the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award shortlists. With a whopping 70 books across seven categories and two languages, the lists are varied and interesting. 

The fiction list is particularly notable, both for the inclusion of beloved author Miriam Toews' Women Talking, which received incredibly positive reviews but didn't turn up on the Giller or Rogers lists, and Rawi Hage's Beruit Hellfire Society, which made him the only author this year to be included on the Giller (long)list and the Rogers Prize shortlist as well as the GG list. 

Each category winner will receive a $25,000 prize when the awards are announced on October 30, 2018.

Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction shortlist:

• Beirut Hellfire Society – Rawi Hage (Montréal, Quebec) Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada
• Jonny Appleseed – Joshua Whitehead (Calgary, Alberta) Arsenal Pulp Press
• The Red Word – Sarah Henstra (Toronto, Ontario) ECW Press
• Women Talking – Miriam Toews (Toronto, Ontario) Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada
• Zolitude – Paige Cooper (Montréal, Quebec) Biblioasis

Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry shortlist:

• Because: A Lyric Memoir – Joshua Mensch (Prague, Czech Republic) W.W. Norton & Company
• Night Became Years – Jason Stefanik (Winnipeg, Manitoba) Coach House Books
• The Blue Clerk – Dionne Brand (Toronto, Ontario) McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada
• This Wound is a World – Billy-Ray Belcourt (Edmonton, Alberta) Frontenac House
• Wayside Sang – Cecily Nicholson (Burnaby, British Columbia) Talonbooks

Governor General's Literary Award for Drama shortlist:

• Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom – Jordan Tannahill (London, United Kingdom) Playwrights Canada Press
• Gertrude and Alice – Anna Chatterton and Evalyn Parry with Karin Randoja (Hamilton, Ontario, Toronto, Ontario and Toronto, Ontario) Playwrights Canada Press
• Paradise Lost – Erin Shields (Montréal, Quebec) Playwrights Canada Press
• The Men in White – Anosh Irani (North Vancouver, British Columbia) House of Anansi Press
• This Is How We Got Here – Keith Barker (Toronto, Ontario) Playwrights Canada Press

Governor General's Literary Award for Non-fiction shortlist:

• Dead Reckoning: How I Came to Meet the Man Who Murdered My Father – Carys Cragg (Port Coquitlam, British Columbia) Arsenal Pulp Press
• Heart Berries - Terese Marie Mailhot (Evansville, Indiana) Doubleday Canada/Penguin Random House Canada
• Homes: A Refugee Story – Abu Bakr al Rabeeah with Winnie Yeung (Edmonton, Alberta) Freehand Books
• Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age – Darrel J. McLeod (Sooke, British Columbia) Douglas & McIntyre
• The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History – Aida Edemariam (Oxford, United Kingdom) Knopf Canada

Governor General's Literary Award for Young People' Literature - Text:

• Ebb & Flow – Heather Smith (Waterloo, Ontario) Kids Can Press
• Learning to Breathe – Janice Lynn Mather (Delta, British Columbia) Simon & Schuster
• Sweep: The Story of a Girl and her Monster – Jonathan Auxier (Swissvale, Pennsylvania) Puffin Canada/Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers
• The Journey of Little Charlie – Christopher Paul Curtis (Windsor, Ontario) Scholastic Canada
• Winnie’s Great War – Lindsay Mattick and Josh Greenhut (Toronto, Ontario) HarperCollins Publishers

Governor General's Literary Award for Young People' Literature - Illustrated Books:

• Africville – Shauntay Grant and Eva Campbell (Halifax, Nova Scotia/Victoria, British Columbia) Groundwood Books
• At the Pond – Werner Zimmermann (Guelph, Ontario) North Winds Press, an imprint of Scholastic Canada
• Go Show the World: A Celebration of Indigenous Heroes – Wab Kinew and Joe Morse (Winnipeg, Manitoba/Toronto, Ontario) Tundra Books/Penguin Random House Canada
• Ocean Meets Sky – The Fan Brothers (Toronto, Ontario) Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• They Say Blue – Jillian Tamaki (Toronto, Ontario) Groundwood Books

Governor General's Literary Award for Translation (from French to English):

• Descent into Night – Translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott (Montréal, Quebec) Mawenzi House Publishers; translation of Explication de la nuit by Edem Awumey, Les Éditions du Boréal
• Explosions : Michael Bay and the Pyrotechnics of the Imagination – Translated by Aleshia Jensen (Montréal, Quebec) QC Fiction, an imprint of Baraka Books; translation of Des explosions by Mathieu Poulin, Les Éditions de Ta Mère
• Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu – Translated by Vivian Felsen (Toronto, Ontario) University of Ottawa Press; translation of Jacob-Isaac Segal (1896-1954) : un poète yiddish de Montréal et son milieu by Pierre Anctil, Les Presses de l’Université Laval
• Little Beast – Translated by Rhonda Mullins (Montréal, Quebec) Coach House Books; translation of Barbe by Julie Demers, Héliotrope
• Songs for the Cold of Heart – Translated by Peter McCambridge (Cap-Rouge, Quebec) QC Fiction, an imprint of Baraka Books; translation of La fiancée américaine by Eric Dupont, Marchand de feuilles

For more information about the GGs, including French language nominees, see the GG Books website.