Governor General's Literary Awards Announce Shortlist

DO NOT SAY WE HAVE NOTHING, BY MADELEINE THIEN
IMAGE: GGBOOKS.CA

The Governor General's Literary Awards, which are celebrating their 80th year, have announced their 2016 shortlist. The award comes with a $25,000 prize. The winners will be revealed October 25, 2016.

Each category issues a prize for both English- and French-language works. The English-language nominees include:

Fiction:

• Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin
• The Parcel by Anosh Irani
• Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush by Kerry Lee Powell
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
• The Break by Katherena Vermette

Nonfiction:

• Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone) by Kamal Al-Solaylee
• In-Between Days: A Memoir About Living with Cancer by Teva Harrison
• Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours) by Harold R. Johnson
• Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World by Marc Raboy
• A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 by Bill Waiser

Poetry:

• Regeneration Machine by Joe Denham
• The Waking Comes Late by Steven Heighton
• Throaty Wipes by Susan Holbrook
• Prairie Harbour by Garry Thomas Morse
• Marry & Burn by Rachel Rose

Young people's literature (text):

• The Unquiet by Mikaela Everett
• A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston
• Once in a Town Called Moth by Trilby Kent
• Calvin by Martine Leavitt
• The Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones

Young people's literature (illustration):

• The White Cat and the Monk by Jo Ellen Bogart, illustrated by Sydney Smith
• A Hungry Lion, or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals by Lucy Ruth Cummins
• Tokyo Digs a Garden by Jon-Erik Lappano, illustrated by Kellen Hatanaka
• The Branch by Mireille Messier, illustrated by Pierre Pratt
• Ooko by Esmé Shapiro

Drama:

• Kill Me Now by Brad Fraser
• Pig Girl by Colleen Murphy
• A Man A Fish by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard
• Concord Floral by Jordan Tannahill
• Refuge by Mary Vingoe

Translation (French to English):

• The Party Wall translated by Lazer Lederhendler, written by Catherine Leroux
• Guano translated by Rhonda Mullins, written by Louis Carmain
• The Goddess of Fireflies translated by Neil Smith, written by Geneviève Pettersen