Not a lot of history in the Governor-General's Literary Award shortlists this year, apart from a couple of indigenous life writings in the nonfiction category. But what is at least as notable is the number of small Canadian presses among the nominated works, compared to the dominant foreign owned houses.
It's small Canadian houses that take chances on local, explicitly Canadian experiments in fiction, prose and poetry while the big international houses look for internationally marketable titles, perhaps. And clearly the juries are responding more to risktakers and experimenters than to the marketable-concept books right now. Good.
