Michael Crummey, Amanda Parris and Armand Garnet Ruffo among 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards finalists
CBC Books | | Posted: October 2, 2019 8:00 AM | Last Updated: October 4, 2019
Michael Crummey, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Amanda Parris are among the finalists for the 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards.
The prizes, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, are awarded in seven English-language categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people's literature — text, young people's literature — illustration, drama and translation. Seven French-language awards are also given out in the same categories. You can learn about the French-language finalists here.
Crummey is a finalist in the fiction category for his novel The Innocents, a novel about two young siblings surviving on their own in a remote cove after the death of their parents.
The Innocents is also shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Armand Garnet Ruffo is a finalist in the poetry category for TREATY #, a collection that explores the various relationships humans have to each other and to the land.
Amanda Parris, who is the host of the CBC Arts show Exhibitionists, is a finalist in the drama category for Other Side of the Game, which is about two black women from different decades — the 1970s and today — who are community organizers.
Three past winners are nominated in the young people's literature — illustration category: Sydney Smith for Small in the City, Julie Flett for Bird Song and Isabelle Arsenault for Albert's Quiet Quest.
Cary Fagan has picked up two nominations for two different books. In the fiction category, Fagan is a finalist for his novel The Student and, in the young people's literature — illustration category, he is shortlisted for King Mouse with illustrator Dena Seiferling.
Brian Francis is nominated in the category for young people's literature — text for his first YA novel, Break in Case of Emergency.
Prominent Canadian translators Sheila Fischman and Rhonda Mullins are nominated in the translation category for Vi by Kim Thúy and The Embalmer by Anne-Renée Caillé, respectively.
You can see a complete list of finalists below.
The winner in each category will receive $25,000. The winners will be announced on Oct. 29, 2019.
The Governor General's Literary Awards were created in 1937. Past winners include Thomas King, Madeleine Thien, Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a partner of the CBC Literary Prizes.
Fiction
- Eye by Marianne Micros
- Five Wives by Joan Thomas
- Late Breaking by K.D. Miller
- The Innocents by Michael Crummey
- The Student by Cary Fagan
Nonfiction
- City of Omens by Dan Werb
- Fryderyk Chopin by Alan Walker
- Sea Trial by Brian Harvey
- Tiny Lights for Travellers by Naomi K. Lewis
- To the River by Don Gillmor
Poetry
- Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway
- How to Avoid Huge Ships by Julie Bruck
- St. Boniface Elegies by Catherine Hunter
- The Grand River Watershed by Karen Houle
- TREATY # by Armand Garnet Ruffo
Young people's literature — text
- Break in Case of Emergency by Brian Francis
- Cold White Sun by Sue Farrell Holler
- Girl of the Southern Sea by Michelle Kadarusman
- Stand on the Sky by Erin Bow
- The Grey Sisters by Jo Treggiari
Young people's literature — illustration
- Albert's Quiet Quest by Isabelle Arsenault
- Birdsong by Julie Flett
- How to Give Your Cat a Bath by Nicola Winstanley, illustrated by John Martz
- King Mouse by Cary Fagan, illustrated by Dena Seiferling
- Small in the City by Sydney Smith
Drama
- 1 Hour Photo by Tetsuro Shigematsu
- Other Side of the Game by Amanda Parris
- Thanks for Giving by Kevin Loring
- The Fighting Season by Sean Harris Oliver
- What a Young Wife Ought to Know by Hannah Moscovitch
Translation
- 887 by Robert Lepage, translated by Louisa Blair
- Birds of a Kind by Wajdi Mouawad, translated by Linda Gaboriau
- Synapses by Simon Brousseau, translated by Pablo Strauss
- The Embalmer by Anne-Renée Caillé, translated by Rhonda Mullins
- Vi by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman