4 Manitobans among finalists for $25K Governor General’s Literary Awards

Jordan Abel, Danny Ramadan and Cherie Dimaline are among the finalists for the 2024 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 French-to-English translation. Seven French-language awards are also given out in the same categories.

A total of $450,000 is awarded across all the prizes annually.

The winner in each category will receive $25,000. The remaining finalists will each receive $1,000.

Books published between Aug. 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024 were eligible for this year’s awards. The finalists and winners are chosen by a peer assessment committee for each category.

The winners will be announced on Nov. 13, 2024.

Abel is nominated in the fiction category for his novel Empty Spaces, a reimagining of James Fenimore Cooper’s 19th-century text The Last of the Mohicans from a modern urban perspective. Abel explores what it means to be Indigenous without access to familial territory and complicates popular understandings about Indigenous storytelling.

Abel is a Nisga’a writer from British Columbia. He is also the author of the poetry collections The Place of Scraps, Un/inhabited and Injun. In 2017, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Injun. Empty Spaces was also nominated for the 2024 Amazon First Novel Award. 

Ramadan is a finalist in the nonfiction category for his memoir Crooked Teeth. Crooked Teeth refutes the oversimplified refugee narrative and transports readers on an epic and often fraught journey from Damascus to Cairo, Beirut and Vancouver.

Told with nuance and fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth revisits parts of Ramadan’s past he’d rather forget. 

Ramadan is a Vancouver-based Syrian-Canadian author and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. His debut novel The Clothesline Swing was longlisted for Canada Reads 2018 and his second novel The Foghorn Echoes won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. 

Dimaline is nominated in the young people’s literature — text category for Into the Bright Open, a retelling of The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett that reflects Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.

Into the Bright Open follows orphaned girl Mary Lennox as she is sent from her home in Toronto to live with her uncle in the Georgian Bay wilderness. As she adjusts to her new life, one night she discovers Olive, her big-hearted cousin who has been medicated and hidden away in an attic room due to a “nervous condition.”

The girls quickly become friends, and with the help of a charming Métis girl named Sophie, Mary starts to dig deeper into family secrets as she attempts to free Olive. One day the girls stumble upon an overgrown, long-forgotten garden — where some of the answers may lie.

Dimaline is an international bestselling Métis author, best known for her YA novel The Marrow Thieves. The Marrow Thieves was defended by Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018 and was named one of Time magazine’s top 100 YA novels of all time.

Her other books include Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, A Gentle Habit, Empire of Wild and Hunting by Stars. 

The Canada Council for the Arts is also a partner of the CBC Literary Prizes. Three of the poetry nominees have connections with the prizes. Bren Simmers, who is nominated for her collection The Work, won the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize for her poem Spell World Backwards, which is included in The Work. Chimwemwe Undi, nominated for her collection Scientific Marvel, was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize. Barbara Tran, recognized for her collection Precedented Parroting, was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

The 2025 CBC Short Story Prize is currently open for submissions until Nov. 1, 2024.

You can see the finalists in all seven English-language categories below. The French-language categories are available on the Canada Council for the Arts website.

Fiction

The fiction finalists are:

The peer assessment committee is Chris Eaton, francesca ekwuyasi and Jen Ferguson.

The 2023 fiction winner was Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese.

Nonfiction

The nonfiction finalists are:

The peer assessment committee is Jordan Abel, Robyn Maynard and Mary Soderstrom.

The 2023 nonfiction winner was Unearthing by Kyo Maclear.

Poetry

The poetry finalists are:

The peer assessment committee is Kathryn Mockler, Heather Nolan and Tolu Oloruntoba.

The 2023 poetry winner was Xanax Cowboy by Hannah Green.

Young people’s literature — text

The young people’s literature — text finalists are:

The peer assessment committee is Sarah Everett, Louisa Onomé and Ken Setterington.

The 2023 winner of young people’s literature — text was The Probability of Everything by Sarah Everett.

Young people’s literature — illustrated books

The young people’s literature — illustrated books finalists are:

• I’m Afraid, Said the Leaf by Danielle Daniel, illustrated by Matt James
• The Gulf by Adam de Souza
• Do You Remember? by Sydney Smith
• Skating Wild on an Inland Sea by Jean E. Pendziwol, illustrated by Todd Stewart 
• One Giant Leap by Thao Lam 

The peer assessment committee is Kyrsten Brooker, Shauntay Grant and Kevin Sylvester.

The 2023 winner of young people’s literature — illustrated books was When You Can Swim by Jack Wong. 

Translation

The French-to-English translation finalists are:

The peer assessment committee is Peter Feldstein, Jessica Moore and Anne-Marie Wheeler.

The 2023 translation winner was Rosaʼs Very Own Personal Revolution by Eric Dupont, translated by Peter McCambridge. 

Drama

The drama finalists are:

• I Forgive You by Scott Jones & Robert Chafe
• New by Pamela Mala Sinha 
• The Green Line by Makram Ayache 
• Shorelines by Mishka Lavigne
• There Is Violence and There Is Righteous Violence and There Is Death, or the Born-Again Crow by Caleigh Crow 

The peer assessment committee is Kevin Kerr, Marcia Johnson and Kamila Sediego.

The 2023 drama winner was William Shakespeareʼs As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal.