Finalists for the 2023 Ottawa Book Awards, in both English and French categories, were announced on September 12.

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on October 11. Each winner receives $7,500, while finalists will each receive $1,000. The Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry and Le Prix littéraire Émergence AAOF 2023 will also be presented at that time.

The shortlisted titles for the English-language categories are:

English Fiction/Poetry

• Jennifer Falkner, Susanna Hall, Her Book (Fish Gotta Swim Editions)
• natalie hanna, lisan al’asfour (Arbeiter Ring Publishing)
• Kate Heartfield, The Embroidered Book (HarperVoyager/HarperCollins Publishers)
• Jim McEwen, Fearnoch (Breakwater Books)
• Jean Van Loon, Nuclear Family (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

English Nonfiction

• Mark Bourrie, Big Men Fear Me (Biblioasis)
• Tim Cook, Lifesavers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War (Penguin Canada)
• Nathan M. Greenfield, Hanged in Medicine Hat: Murders in a Nazi Prisoner-of-War Camp, and the Disturbing True Story of Canada’s Last Mass Execution (Sutherland House Books)
• Stephen Poloz, The Next Age of Uncertainty: How the World Can Adapt to a Riskier Future (Allen Lane/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Bonnie Robichaud, It Should Be Easy to Fix (Between the Lines)

The full shortlist announcement is available at the Ottawa Book Awards site.