Governor General's Literary Awards Honour Thien, Heighton, Waiser & More!

Madeleine Thien's very good year continued last night at the Governor General's Literary Awards ceremony, where Thien's Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Alfred A. Knopf Canada) was presented with the fiction award. Also nominated this year for the Man Booker Prize, Thien has long been widely respected by critics and beloved by readers, and 2016 is bringing her to even wider acclaim.

Poetry winner Steven Heighton was nominated previously for his collection The Ecstasy of Skeptics in 1994 before being awarded the prize for his The Waking Comes Late yesterday. Both books were published by Toronto's House of Anansi Press, which had a very good year, with Young People's Literature Awards in both the Illustration and Text categories in addition to Heighton's poetry prize. 

Congratulations to all the winners and their publishers (and fans!). Check out the full list below, and visit the Governor General's Literary Award website for more information, including a full list of French-language award winners. 

Full list of 2016 Governor General's Literary Award Winners:

Fiction

Madeleine Thien for Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Alfred A. Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)

Young People’s Literature (Text)

Martine Leavitt for Calvin (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press) 

Young People’s Literature (Illustrated Books)

Jon-Erik Lappano and Kellen Hatanaka for Tokyo Digs a Garden (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press)

Drama

Colleen Murphy for Pig Girl (Playwrights Canada Press)

Poetry

Steven Heighton for The Waking Comes Late (House of Anansi Press)

Non-Fiction

Bill Waiser for A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 (Fifth House Publishers)

Translation (French to English)

Lazer Lederhendler for The Party Wall (Biblioasis); translation of Le mur mitoyen by Catherine Leroux (Éditions Alto)