The City of Ottawa today announced the finalists for the 2012 Ottawa Book Awards and Prix du livre d’Ottawa.

The awards recognize the top fiction and non-fiction books written by local authors, in both official languages. Winners will receive $7,500, to be presented at an awards ceremony held on Oct. 24 at the Shenkman Arts Centre.

The finalists are:

English Fiction

• Alan Cumyn, Tilt (Groundwood Books)
• Jamieson Findlay, The Summer of Permanent Wants (Doubleday Canada)
• Elizabeth Hay, Alone in the Classroom (McClelland & Stewart)
• Frances Itani, Requiem (HarperCollins Canada)
• Shane Rhodes, Err (Nightwood Editions)

English Non-fiction

• Damien-Claude Bélanger, Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891“1945 (University of Toronto Press)
• Murray Brewster, The Savage War: The Untold Battles of Afghanistan (John Wiley & Sons Canada)
• Robert R. Fowler, A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda (HarperCollins Canada)
• Craig Oliver, Oliver’s Twist: The Life and Times of an Unapologetic Newshound (Viking Canada)
• Ruth B. Phillips, Museum Pieces: Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums (McGill-Queen’s University Press)