The finalists have been announced for this year’s Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black and Rawi Hage’s Beirut Hellfire Society, both of which also appeared on the Giller longlist last week, will compete against Craig Davidson’s ode to the 1980s The Saturday Night Ghost Club, Jen Neale’s mixture of realism and environmental allegory novel Land Mammals and Sea Creatures, and Kathy Page’s historical romance Dear Evelyn. Washington Black is also shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize.

The Rogers Writers’s Trust shortlist in full:

• The Saturday Night Ghost Club, Craig Davidson (Knopf Canada)
• Washington Black, Esi Edugyan (Patrick Crean Editions)
• Beirut Hellfire Society, Rawi Hage (Knopf Canada)
• Land Mammals and Sea Creatures, Jen Neale (ECW Press)
• Dear Evelyn, Kathy Page (Biblioasis)

Each finalist receives $5,000. The $50,000 grand prize will be presented on November 7 at the Writers’ Trust Awards ceremony, which will be hosted by writer Zoe Whittall in Toronto.