The finalists for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction
CBC Books | Posted: October 30, 2023 3:52 PM | Last Updated: October 30, 2023
The $25,000 prizes recognize the best Canadian books of the year
Here are the finalists for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.
The Governor General's Literary Awards are one of Canada's oldest and most prestigious literary prizes.
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 French-to-English translation. Seven French-language awards are also given out in the same categories.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a partner of the CBC Literary Prizes. The 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is currently open for submissions.
Each winner will receive $25,000. The winners will be announced on Nov. 8, 2023.
The fiction category was assessed by Carleigh Baker, Neil Bissoondath and Jessica Westhead.
Get to know the fiction finalists below.
A History of Burning by Janika Oza
A History of Burning is an epic novel about how one act of rebellion can influence a family for generations. It's 1898 and a 13-year-old boy in India named Pirbhai needs to make money to support his family and ends up inadvertently being sent across the ocean to be a labourer for the British. He has a choice to make, and what he does will change the course of his life, and his family's fate, for years to come. The story takes readers to Uganda, India, England and Canada in the wake of Pirbhai's choice as the novel explores the impacts of colonialism, resistance, exile and the power of family.
Janika Oza is a writer, educator and graduate student based in Toronto. She won the 2019 Malahat Review Open Season Award in fiction for her short story Exile, the 2020 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Award and the 2022 O. Henry Award.
Oza made the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for her story The Gift of Choice, which is a chapter in A History of Burning. Her writing is published in a number of journals, including The Columbia Review, Into The Void, Hobart, and Looseleaf Magazine.
LISTEN | Janika Oza discusses A History of Burning with Ryan B. Patrick:
Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese
Chrysalis is a short story collection that examines the ways in which racialized women are undermined and exploited and the ways in which they reclaim their power. Blending realism with elements of fantasy, Varghese tells stories of a woman dying in her sleep repeatedly until she finds an unexpected refuge or a couple in a broken marriage encountering spiritual direction. Each story looks at family, sexuality, cultural norms and the ties that bind.
Anuja Varghese is a Hamilton, Ont.-based writer and editor. Her stories have been recognized in the Prism International Short Fiction Contest and the Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Chrysalis is her first book.
LISTEN | Anuja Varghese's short story collection sizzles with desire and transformation:
In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
When a woman escaping the U.S. through the Underground Railroad kills a slave hunter, Lensinda is enlisted to interview her from jail. Instead of providing her testimony, the old woman proposes an exchange: a story for a story. The deal seems mundane enough, except their back-and-forth soon reveals an extraordinary range of stories, secrets and untold histories, including those of Black refugee communities and Indigenous nations around the Great Lakes.
Thomas is a writer, carpenter and land steward. Born and raised in Ottawa, he is of Black and mixed heritage descended from Trinidad and the British Isles. In the Upper Country is his first novel. CBC Books named Thomas a Black writer to watch in 2023.
LISTEN | Kai Thomas on The Upper Country:
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
The Sleeping Car Porter tells the story of Baxter, a Black man in 1929 who works as a sleeping car porter on a train that travels across the country. He smiles and tries to be invisible to the passengers, but what he really wants is to save up and go to dentistry school. On one particular trip out west, the train is stalled and Baxter finds a naughty postcard of two gay men. The postcard reawakens his memories and longings and puts his job in jeopardy.
Suzette Mayr is a poet and novelist based in Calgary. She is the author of the novels Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall, Monoceros, Moon Honey, The Widows and Venous Hum. Monoceros won the ReLit Award, the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize and made the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.
The Sleeping Car Porter won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
LISTEN | Suzette Mayr on The Sleeping Car Porter:
We Spread by Iain Reid
In the thriller We Spread, Penny, an artist, finds herself in a long-term care residence after she's had one too many incidents. Initially surrounded by peers, conversing and painting, Penny begins to lose her grip on time and her place in the world.
We Spread is on the Canada Reads 2023 longlist. CBC Books named We Spread one of the best works of Canadian fiction in 2022.
Iain Reid is an author from Kingston, Ont. His debut novel, the 2016 psychological thriller I'm Thinking of Ending Things, was adapted into a film by American writer and director Charlie Kaufman for Netflix. He is also the author of the memoirs One Bird's Choice and The Truth About Luck and the thriller Foe.
LISTEN | Why Iain Reid turned to writing thrillers: