The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the 70 finalists for this year’s Governor General’s Literary Awards.

Each finalist receives $1,000, with the winners in each of the 14 categories to receive $25,000. Publishers of the winning books will each receive $3,000 to promote the book.

The winners will be announced on November 8. Eligible books were published between August 1, 2022, and July 31, 2023.

The English-language finalists are:

Fiction

• A History of Burning by Janika Oza (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese (House of Anansi Press)
• In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas (Viking/PRHC)    
• The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr (Coach House Books)
• We Spread by Iain Reid (Scribner/Simon & Schuster Canada)

Poetry

• Baby Book by Amy Ching-Yan Lam (Brick Books)
• Exculpatory Lilies by Susan Musgrave (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)
• Old Gods by Conor Kerr (Nightwood Editions)
• The Ridge by Robert Bringhurst (Harbour Publishing)
• Xanax Cowboy by Hannah Green (House of Anansi Press)

Drama

• Forgiveness by Hiro Kanagawa (Playwrights Canada Press)
• Is My Microphone On? by Jordan Tannahill (Playwrights Canada Press)
• The Enchanted Loom by Suvendrini Lena; Dushy Gnanapragasam, trans. (Playwrights Canada Press)
• The War Being Waged by Darla Contois (Scirocco Drama, J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing)
• William Shakespeareʼs As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal (Playwrights Canada Press)

Nonfiction

• Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey With a Scar(f) by Monia Mazigh (Mawenzi House) 
• Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery by Harrison Mooney (HarperCollins Canada)
• Message in a Bottle: Ocean Dispatches from a Seabird Biologist by Holly Hogan (Knopf Canada/PRHC)
• Unbroken by Angela Sterritt (Greystone Books)
• Unearthing by Kyo Maclear (Knopf Canada/PRHC)

Young People’s Literature – Text

• As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers/Hachette Book Group)
• Berani by Michelle Kadarusman (Pajama Press)
• Fire on Headless Mountain by Iain Lawrence (Margaret Ferguson Books/PRHC)
• The Probability of Everything by Sarah Everett (Clarion Books/HarperCollins)
• Weird Rules to Follow by Kim Spencer (Orca Book Publishers)

Young People’s Literature – Illustrated Books

• Boobies by Nancy Vo (Groundwood Books)
• Mr. S by Monica Arnaldo (Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins)
• Still This Love Goes On by Buffy Sainte-Marie and Julie Flett (Greystone Kids)
• The Skull by Jon Klassen (Candlewick Press)
• When You Can Swim by Jack Wong (Scholastic Canada)

Translation (from French to English)

• Alone: The Journeys of Three Young Refugees, translated by Arielle Aaronson (Groundwood Books)
  A translation of Seuls by Paul Tom
• House Within a House, translated by D.M. Bradford (Brick Books)
  A translation of Désormais, ma demeure by Nicholas Dawson
• Kukum, translated by Susan Ouriou (Arachnide/House of Anansi Press)
  A translation of Kukum by Michel Jean
• Okinum, translated by Émilie Monnet (Scirocco Drama, J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing)
  A translation of Okinum by Émilie Monnet.
• Rosaʼs Very Own Personal Revolution, translated by Peter McCambridge (QC Fiction, Baraka Books)
  A translation of La logeuse by Éric Dupont

Finalists in the French-language categories are listed on ggbooks.ca.