2021 winners and finalists

Governor General’s Literary Awards

2021 English-language winners and finalists 2021 French-language winners and finalists

English-language books French-language books

Fiction

Fictional Father

Joe Ollmann

Drawn & Quarterly

Home Waltz

G. A. Grisenthwaite

Palimpsest Press

Second Place

Rachel Cusk

Harper Perennial / HarperCollins Canada

Book cover for Tainna: The Unseen Ones, by Norma Dunning

Winner

You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked.

Sheung-King

Book*hug Press

Book cover for Faire les sucres, by Fanny Britt

Winner

Jʼai montré toutes mes pattes blanches je nʼen ai plus

Sylvie Laliberté

Éditions Somme toute

Noir métal

Sébastien Chabot

Éditions Alto

Rien du tout

Olivia Tapiero

Mémoire dʼencrier

Tout est ori

Paul Serge Forest

VLB éditeur

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Kristen den Hartog

Chris Eaton

Suzette Mayr

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Sophie Bienvenu

Aristote Kavungu

Andrée A. Michaud

Poetry

A History of the Theories of Rain

Stephen Collis

Talonbooks

A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure

Hoa Nguyen

Wave Books

Sulphurtongue

Rebecca Salazar

McClelland & Stewart / Penguin Random House Canada

Book cover for The Junta of Happenstance, by Tolu Oloruntoba

Winner

The Untranslatable I

Roxanna Bennett

Gordon Hill Press

Dʼune caresse patentée

Louise Marois

Triptyque, Groupe Nota bene

Exosquelette

Chloé LaDuchesse

Mémoire d'encrier

La voleuse

Daria Colonna

Poètes de brousse

Book cover for Pendant que Perceval tombait, by Tania Langlais

Winner

Pompéi

Patrick Roy

Le Quartanier

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Kaie Kellough

George Murray

Anna Marie Sewell

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Sonia-Sophie Courdeau

Hélène Dorion

Hector Ruiz

Drama

Crippled

Paul David Power

Breakwater Books

Selfie

Christine Quintana

Playwrights Canada Press

Book cover for Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, by Hannah Moscovitch

Winner

Take d Milk, Nah?

Jivesh Parasram

Playwrights Canada Press

Two Indians

Falen Johnson

Scirocco Drama / J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing

Bande de bouffons

Jean-Philippe Lehoux

Éditions du Quartz

Combattre le why-why

Rébecca Déraspe

Les Éditions de Ta Mère

Book cover for Copeaux, by Mishka Lavigne

Winner

Johnny

Emma Haché

Lansman Editeur

Okinum

Émilie Monnet

Les Herbes rouges

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Marcia Johnson

Matthew MacKenzie

Robert Tsonos

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Daniel Castonguay

Marie-Christine Lê-Huu

Érika Tremblay-Roy

Non-fiction

Book cover for alfabet/alphabet: a memoir of a first language, by Sadiqa de Meijer

Winner

Care of: Letters, Connections, and Cures

Ivan Coyote

McClelland & Stewart / Penguin Random House Canada

Revery: A Year of Bees

Jenna Butler

Wolsak and Wynn Publishers

The Day the World Stops Shopping

J.B. MacKinnon

Random House Canada / Penguin Random House Canada

What I Remember, What I Know: The Life of a High Arctic Exile

Larry Audlaluk

Inhabit Media

Book cover for Du diesel dans les veines, by Serge Bouchard and Mark Fortier

Winner

La Reconstruction du paradis

Robert Lalonde

Les Éditions du Boréal

La Vie au long cours

Isabelle Daunais

Les Éditions du Boréal

Lʼempire invisible

Mathieu Bélisle

Leméac Éditeur

Occuper les distances

Esther Laforce

Leméac Éditeur

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Sarah de Leeuw

Amanda Leduc

Evelyn C. White

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Marie-Andrée Lamontagne

Sophie Létourneau

Melchior Mbonimpa

Young People's Literature – Text

Blood Like Magic

Liselle Sambury

Margaret K. McElderry Books / Simon & Schuster

Book cover for Firefly, by Philippa Dowding

Winner

Peter Lee's Notes from the Field

Angela Ahn

Tundra Books / Penguin Random House Canada

The Fabulous Zed Watson!

Basil Sylvester and Kevin Sylvester

HarperCollins Publishers

Unravel

Sharon Jennings

Red Deer Press

Comme un ouragan

Jonathan Bécotte

Héritage jeunesse

Le Dernier Viking

Mario Fecteau

Les Éditions du Boréal

Book cover for L’ogre et l’enfant by Magali Laurent

Winner

Stella, qu'est-ce que tu fais là? Tome 1

Sandra Sirois

Éditions Hurtubise

Tara voulait jouer

Frédérick Wolfe

Leméac Éditeur

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Aviaq Johnston

Karen Rivers

Ken Setterington

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Diane Lavoie

Dynah Psyché

Pierre Roy

Young People's Literature – Illustrated Books

Mii maanda ezhi-gkendmaanh / This Is How I Know

Brittany Luby and Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

Book cover for On the Trapline, by David A. Robertson and Julie Flett

Winner

Out Into the Big Wide Lake

Paul Harbridge and Josée Bisaillon

Tundra Books / Penguin Random House Canada

The Library Bus

Bahram Rahman and Gabrielle Grimard

Pajama Press

The Wind and the Trees

Todd Stewart

Owlkids Books

Book cover for À qui appartiennent les nuages ?, by Mario Brassard and Gérard DuBois

Winner

Bouées : dérives identitaires, amours imaginaires et détours capillaires

Catherine Lepage

Les Éditions de la Pastèque

La langue au chat et autres poèmes pas bêtes

François Gravel and Laurent Pinabel

Éditions Les 400 coups

Le tricot

Jacques Goldstyn

Les Éditions de la Pastèque

Ma maison-tête

Vigg

Fonfon

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Kyrsten Brooker

Catherine Hernandez

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Qin Leng

Luc Melanson

Christine Sioui Wawanoloath

Translation

A Cemetery for Bees

Translated by Katia Grubisic

Linda Leith Publishing; translation of Le cimetière des abeilles, by Alina Dumitrescu

Paul at Home

Translated by Helge Dascher and Rob Aspinall

Drawn & Quarterly; translation of Paul à la maison, by Michel Rabagliati

People, State, and War Under the French Regime in Canada

Translated by Peter Feldstein

McGill-Queenʼs University Press; translation of Le Peuple, lʼÉtat et la Guerre au Canada sous le Régime français, by Louise Dechêne

The Lover, the Lake

Translated by Susan Ouriou

Freehand Books; translation of Lʼamant du lac, by Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau

Book cover for This Radiant Life, translated by Erín Moure

Winner

La ballade de Baby suivi de Sagesse de l'absurde

Translated by Dominique Fortier

Éditions Alto; translation of Lullabies for Little Criminals and Wisdom in Nonsense, by Heather OʼNeill

La course de Rose

Translated by Daniel Grenier

Éditions Hannenorak; translation of Roseʼs Run, by Dawn Dumont

Petits marronnages

Translated by Madeleine Stratford

Les Éditions du Boréal; translation of Dominoes at the Crossroads, by Kaie Kellough

Book cover for Poèmes 1938-1984, translated by Marie Frankland

Winner

Toots fait la Shiva, avenue Minto

Translated by Colette St-Hilaire

Éditions du Noroît; translation of Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots, by Erín Moure

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Jonathan Kaplansky

Aimee Wall

Anne-Marie Wheeler

PEER ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

Anne Malena

Pascal Raud

Chantal Ringuet

Media partners

The Canada Council for the Arts thanks the GGBooks media partners for contributing to the promotion of literature from Canada.

Submitting a book

Publishers can submit works they consider to be outstanding. The guidelines and eligibility requirements are accessible through the button below.

How to submit a nomination