The City of Toronto has announced the 13 books longlisted for the 2026 Toronto Book Awards.

The annual award, established in 1974, honours books whose authors are inspired by the city. The winning author receives $20,000, while shortlisted finalists each receive $2,000.

The jury for this year’s prize is comprised of author and poet Jake Byrne; novelist and nonfiction writer Kristen den Hartog; literary agent Julia Kim; educator, anti-racism advocate, and writer Matthew R. Morris; and poet, translator, and curator Bänoo Zan.

This year’s longlist includes fiction, nonfiction, and a stage play.

The longlisted titles are:

• Black Public Joy: No Permit or Permission Required by Jay Pitter (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)
• Cherry Beach by Don Gillmor (Biblioasis)
• Fatal Confession: A Girl’s Murder, a Man’s Execution, and the Fitton Case by Carolyn Strange (UBC Press)
• Good Guys by Sharon Bala (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)
• Housing for All: How Toronto Built the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood by Frank Lewinberg and Vincenzo Pietropaolo (Cormorant Books)
• juniper by Kerri Huffman (Frontenac House)
• The Paper Birds by Jeanette Lynes (HarperAvenue/HarperCollins Canada)
• Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio (Biblioasis)
• Property by Kate Cayley (Coach House Books)
• Tyson’s Song by Peter N. Bailey (Playwrights Canada Press)
• Where Histories Meet: Indigenous and Settler Encounters in the Toronto Area by Victoria Freeman (University of Calgary Press)
• You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh (Tundra Books/Penguin Random House Canada)

A five-book shortlist will be announced in September. The winner will be named at a ceremony on Nov. 10.

Maggie Helwig won the 2025 award for her book Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community (Coach House Books).