Miriam Toews, Canisia Lubrin, Hannah Moscovitch and Sharon Bala are among the finalists for awards that celebrate books in both official languages across seven categories.
The Canadian
Newsroom
October 28, 2026
3 min read
The Canada Council for the Arts announced the finalists for the 2026 Governor General’s Literary Awards on October 28, in a year that marks the prizes’ 90th anniversary. Founded in 1936, the awards are among the country’s oldest literary honours and recognize books published in Canada in English and French across seven categories, from fiction and poetry to translation and illustrated young people’s literature.
In English-language fiction, the finalists are Sharon Bala’s Good Guys, Sara Peters’s Mother of God, Kate Cayley’s Property, Nina Dunic’s Suddenly Light and Kim Fu’s The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts. The poetry list includes Gillian Sze, Julie Roorda, Kaie Kellough, Brandi Bird and Canisia Lubrin, whose The World After Rain is shortlisted. Drama finalists include Jordan Tannahill’s Prince Faggot and Hannah Moscovitch’s Red Like Fruit.
The non-fiction category features Miriam Toews’s A Truce That Is Not Peace, Trina Moyles’s Black Bear, Greg Mercer’s The Lobster Trap, Adrian Sutherland’s The Work of Our Hands and Saeed Teebi’s You Will Not Kill Our Imagination. The spread of hometowns — from Whitehorse and Attawapiskat to St. John’s and Halifax — reflects a list drawn well beyond the usual Toronto–Montreal axis, though large houses such as Penguin Random House Canada remain heavily represented.
Finalists are chosen through peer assessment by separate committees for each category and language — seven in English and seven in French. Each winning writer, translator or illustrator receives $25,000, publishers receive $3,000 to promote each winning book, and every finalist receives $1,000. The total annual prize value is $450,000, and the Canada Council has funded and administered the awards since 1959.
Literary prizes have outsized influence in a small market like Canada’s, where a shortlist spot can lift sales and library orders and keep a book in stores longer. In a year when independent presses such as Coach House, Invisible Publishing and Guernica Editions also made the lists, the finalists offer readers a useful map of the year in Canadian writing. Winners are expected to be announced in November.
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