No suspense here. History is hardly present in the shortlists for the Governor-General's Literary Awards, our most prestigious and comprehensive prizes for literary writing in Canada.
On the nonfiction list -- five titles -- Wong's "multigenerational family odyssey" and Diaz's biography of Vancouver's legendary black swim instructor Joe Fortes both sound at least history-adjacent. I have not read either and know little of them, though I'm pleased to see their small press publisher defying the branch-plant hegemony. Memoir remains deservedly strong.
But the jury found no big-history, big-research-based, big-historian books of the kind that used to appear on these lists from time to time. It just ain't the zeitgeist -- until someone comes along with a book big enough to shift the zeitgeist.
- All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey by Teresa Wong (Arsenal Pulp Press)
- How to Survive a Bear Attack by Claire Cameron (Knopf Canada/PRHC)
- Searching for Serafim: The Life and Legacy of Serafim “Joe” Fortes by Ruby Smith Dίaz (Arsenal Pulp Press)
- The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse: A Memoir by Vinh Nguyen (HarperCollins Canada)
- What to Feel, How to Feel: Lyric Essays on Neurodivergence and Neurofatherhood by Shane Neilson (Palimpsest Press)
Full details here. The fiction shortlist looks nothing like the Giller's, which suggests there is no critical consensus on that side either. Winners announced November 6.
