Two Canadian novelists few people had heard of before this summer continue rack up acclaim from international prize juries.
Esi Edugyan and Patrick deWitt “ authors of the novels Half-Blood Blues and The Sisters Brothers, respectively “ have been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, completing a double trifecta that includes the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Both B.C.-born authors are also finalists for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.
The shortlist is rounded by another Giller finalist, David Bezmozgis’s The Free World, as well as a first novel, Alexi Zentner’s Touch, and Marina Endicott’s The Little Shadows.
One of the season’s most highly touted novels, Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table (McClelland & Stewart), was not submitted for consideration for the prize. Ondaatje, who is shortlisted for the $50,000 Giller, has won the GG for fiction three times before: in 1992 for The English Patient, in 2000 for Anil’s Ghost, and in 2007 for Divisadero.
Also notable are the poetry finalists, three of whom are published by Toronto micro-press BookThug.
The complete shortlists, which include drama, non-fiction, children’s books, and translation, are as follows:
Fiction
- David Bezmozgis, The Free World (HarperCollins Canada)
- Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (House of Anansi Press)
- Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen Publishers)
- Marina Endicott, The Little Shadows (Doubleday Canada)
- Alexi Zentner, Touch (Knopf Canada)
Poetry
- Michael Boughn, Cosmographia: A Post-Lucretian Faux Micro-Epic (BookThug)
- Kate Eichhorn, Fieldnotes, A Forensic (BookThug)
- Phil Hall, Killdeer (BookThug)
- Garry Thomas Morse, Discovery Passages (Talonbooks)
- Susan Musgrave, Origami Dove (McClelland & Stewart)
Drama
- Brendan Gall, Minor Complications: Two Plays (Coach House Books)
- Jonathan Garfinkel, House of Many Tongues (Playwrights Canada Press)
- Erin Shields, If We Were Birds (Playwrights Canada Press)
- Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Gas Girls (Playwrights Canada Press)
- Vern Thiessen, Lenin’s Embalmers (Playwrights Canada Press)
Non-fiction
- Charles Foran, Mordecai: The Life & Times (Knopf Canada)
- Nathan M. Greenfield, The Damned: The Canadians at the Battle of Hong Kong and the POW Experience, 1941-45 (HarperCollins Canada)
- Richard Gwyn, Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, Volume Two: 1867-1891 (Random House Canada)
- J.J. Lee, The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit (McClelland & Stewart)
- Andrew Nikiforuk, Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America’s Great Forests (Greystone Books)
Children’s Literature: Text
- Jan L. Coates, A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk (Red Deer Press)
- Deborah Ellis, No Ordinary Day (Groundwood Books)
- Christopher Moore, From Then to Now: A Short History of the World (Tundra Books)
- Kenneth Oppel, This Dark Endeavour (HarperCollins Canada)
- Tim Wynne-Jones, Blink & Caution (Candlewick Press)
Children’s Literature: Illustration
- Isabelle Arsenault, Migrant; text by Maxine Trottier (Groundwood Books)
- Kim La Fave, Fishing with Gubby; text by Gary Kent (Harbour Publishing)
- Renata Liwska, Red Wagon; text by Renata Liwska (Philomel Books/Penguin)
- Frank Viva, Along a Long Road; text by Frank Viva (HarperCollins Canada)
- Cybèle Young, Ten Birds; text by Cybèle Young (Kids Can Press)
Translation: French to English
- Judith Cowan, Meridian Line (Signal Editions); English translation of Origine des méridiens by Paul Bélanger (Éditions du Noroît)
- David Scott Hamilton, Exit (Anvil Press); English translation of Paradis, clef en main by Nelly Arcan (Les Éditions Les 400 coups)
- Lazer Lederhendler, Apocalypse for Beginners (Vintage Canada); English translation of Tarmac by Nicolas Dickner (Éditions Alto)
- Lazer Lederhendler, Dirty Feet (House of Anansi Press); English translation of Les pieds sales by Edem Awumey (Les Éditions du Boréal)
- Donald Winkler, Partita for Glenn Gould (McGill-Queen’s University Press); English translation of Partita pour Glenn Gould by Georges Leroux (Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal)