2026 Governor General's Literary Awards Finalists

The Canada Council named 69 finalist books across seven categories in English and French for the awards' 90th year. The 14 winners, who get $25,000 each, will be named Nov. 12.

The Canada Council for the Arts has named the finalists for the 2026 Governor General's Literary Awards, among the country's oldest literary awards. The council announced the shortlists on October 28: up to five books in each of seven categories, in English and in French, for 69 finalists in all. The winners will be named on November 12.

This is the 90th year of the awards, which were founded in 1936. The Canada Council has run them since 1959. Each winning writer, translator or illustrator gets $25,000, the winner's publisher gets $3,000 to promote the book, and every finalist receives $1,000. The council puts the total annual prize value at $450,000.

"For 90 years, the Governor General's Literary Awards have celebrated the creativity, talent and breadth of literary voices in Canada," said Michelle Chawla, the council's director and CEO.

The English-language finalists

Fiction: Good Guys by Sharon Bala and Mother of God by Sara Peters (both McClelland & Stewart), Property by Kate Cayley (Coach House Books), Suddenly Light by Nina Dunic (Invisible Publishing) and The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu (HarperCollins Canada).

Non-fiction: A Truce That Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews and Black Bear by Trina Moyles (both Knopf Canada), The Lobster Trap by Greg Mercer (McClelland & Stewart), The Work of Our Hands by Adrian Sutherland (Viking Canada) and You Will Not Kill Our Imagination by Saeed Teebi (Scribner Canada).

Poetry: An Orange, A Syllable by Gillian Sze (ECW Press), Catastrophilia by Julie Roorda (Guernica Editions), Interposition by Kaie Kellough and The World After Rain by Canisia Lubrin (both McClelland & Stewart), and Pitiful: Poems by Brandi Bird (House of Anansi Press).

Drama: all four English finalists come from Playwrights Canada Press: Prince Faggot by Jordan Tannahill, PYPER by Susanna Fournier, Red Like Fruit by Hannah Moscovitch and Salesman in China by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy.

Young People's Literature, Text: Seabird by Michelle Kadarusman, The Love Song of Mr. Byrd by Philippa Dowding, The Rebel Girls of Rome by Jordyn Taylor, The World's End by David A. Robertson and Touching Grass by Kristy Jackson.

Young People's Literature, Illustrated Books: A Door Is to Open by Kyo Maclear and Julie Morstad, Aggie and the Ghost by Matthew Forsythe, Billie Builds a RoboCorn by José Lourenço and James Braithwaite, Call Me Gray by Andrew Larsen, Bells Larsen and Tallulah Fontaine, and Little Moments in a Big Universe by Todd Stewart.

Translation (French to English): All Kidding Aside by Neil Smith, Together by the Sea by Katia Grubisic, When Water Became Blue by Rhonda Mullins, and two books translated by Jonathan Kaplansky, The Love of Man and The Origin of the Future.

The French-language side

The French lists are just as full. In fiction, the finalists are Alex Thibodeau, Gabriel Marcoux-Chabot, Sarah McNeil, Virginie Chaloux-Gendron and Charlotte Gosselin. La Peuplade has three books across the French fiction and poetry lists, and Les Éditions du Boréal also has three finalists across fiction, poetry and young people's text. The full list on the GGBooks site has every finalist and the peer committees that chose them.

Who's on the lists

Penguin Random House Canada imprints account for 11 of the 34 English finalists, including four of the five non-fiction books. The rest are spread across HarperCollins Canada, Simon & Schuster Canada and a long list of independent presses, including Coach House with two books, Invisible Publishing, Pajama Press and Playwrights Canada Press. The finalists were picked by peer assessment committees, one for each category in each language.

Why it matters for writers

The GGBooks are open to books published in Canada, publishers submit the titles, and small presses make the lists every year, as they did again this time. The money is real too: $1,000 to every finalist and $25,000 to each winner. For Canadian writers, the takeaway is to make sure your publisher knows the submission window. The council says the competition opens eight weeks before its deadline, and the guidelines are in its online funding portal.

Sources

Canada Council for the Arts, October 28, 2026: The Canada Council for the Arts announces the finalists
GGBooks: Governor General's Literary Awards, 2026 finalists

Photo: Miriam Toews, a non-fiction finalist, with A Truce That Is Not Peace at the 2025 Texas Book Festival in Austin. Photo by Larry D. Moore, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0.