The Ottawa Book Awards have announced three shortlists for the 2025 awards.

The annual awards, granted in three categories, honour literary excellence in French and English books by Ottawa writers in the previous year. The winner of each prize receives $7,500, with the finalists to receive $1,000.

The winners will be named on Nov. 15.

The finalists are:

English Fiction

• Manahil Bandukwala, Heliotropia (Brick Books)
• Nina Berkhout, This Bright Dust (Goose Lane Editions)
• Paul Carlucci, The Voyageur (Swift Press)
• rob mclennan, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press)
• Chuqiao Yang, The Last to the Party (Goose Lane Editions)

English Nonfiction

• Denise Chong, Out of Darkness: Rumana Monzur’s Journey through Betrayal, Tyranny and Abuse (Random House Canada)
• Tim Cook, The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War (Penguin Canada)
• Katherine Leyton, Motherlike (Second Story Press)
• Misty Pratt, All In Her Head: How Gender Bias Harms Women’s Mental Health (Greystone Books)
• Ian Smillie, Under Development: A Journey without Maps (Practical Action Publishing)

Prix du livre d’Ottawa  

• Margaret Michèle Cook, La lumière de minuit (Éditions Malaïka)
• Emmanuelle Erny, Charlotte au pays des mots (Les Éditions L’Interligne)
• Monia Mazigh, Histoires de racines (Les Éditions David)
• Claire Ménard-Roussy, Un lourd prix à payer (Les Éditions David)