The  winners of the 2026 Manitoba Book Awards were announced on  Sept. 19 in Winnipeg. The awards celebrate the best of books in the Prairie province.

After a two-year hiatus, the awards returned with a new working board and provincial funding for three of the six awards: the Margaret Laurence Fiction Award, Prix Littéraire rue-Deschambault, and the Alexander Kennedy Ibister Award for Nonfiction. The other awards were sponsored by various contributors.

The winners are:

Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book

• Wavelength by Cale Plett (Groundwood Books)

Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award / City of Winnipeg Carol Shields Literary Prize

• Founding Folks: An Oral History of the Winnipeg Folk Festival by Kevin Nikkel (University of Manitoba Press)

The Rue-Deschambault literary prize

• Poésie Franco-Ouestienne 1974 – 2024 (Franco-Western Poetry, 1974 –  2024) edited by JR Léveillé (Les Éditions du Blé)

Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction / Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Studies and Essays

• Seeking Spirit: A Vietnamese (Non)Buddhist Memoir by Linda Trinh (Guernica Editions)

Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Lansdowne Prize for Poetry

• Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi (House of Anansi Press)

Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction

• The World So Wide by Zilla Jones (Cormorant Books)

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