Suzette Mayr, Iain Reid among finalists for Governor General’s Literary Awards
Posted October 25, 2023 7:06 am.
Last Updated October 25, 2023 9:00 am.
TORONTO — Suzette Mayr, Iain Reid and Susan Musgrave are among the well-known finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards.
The Canada Council for the Arts named 70 finalists across seven categories in both English and French on Wednesday. The 14 winners, who each receive $25,000, will be announced Nov. 8.
Mayr made the fiction list for “The Sleeping Car Porter,” which took home last year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize, while Reid is on the same short list for “We Spread.”
Also in the running for the English-language fiction prize are Janika Oza’s novel “A History of Burning,” Anuja Varghese’s short story collection “Chrysalis” and Kai Thomas’s novel “In the Upper Country.”
Musgrave, meanwhile, is a finalist for the poetry prize for “Exculpatory Lilies,” a collection that was also shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize.
Other finalists for that award are “Baby Book” by Amy Ching-Yan Lam, “Old Gods” by Conor Kerr, “The Ridge” by Robert Bringhurst and “Xanax Cowboy” by Hannah Green.
Non-fiction finalists include “Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey With a Scar(f)” by Monia Mazigh, “Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery” by Harrison Mooney, “Message in a Bottle: Ocean Dispatches from a Seabird Biologist” by Holly Hogan, “Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls” by Angela Sterritt and “Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets” by Kyo Maclear.
The Governor General’s Literary Awards will also dole out honours for drama, writing and illustration in children’s literature, as well as French-to-English translation. There are separate French-language categories for francophone writing.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2023.
The Canadian Press
