Author Rachel Cusk has been named a finalist for the Governor-General’s Literary Awards.The Canadian Press
Less than 48 hours after being shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, writer Rachel Cusk has been named a finalist for another of the country's major literary awards.
The Governor-General's Literary Awards, which have been handed out since 1937, announced finalists in seven categories in both official languages on Wednesday. The winners, who each receive $25,000, will be revealed on Oct. 28.
In addition to the Canadian-born, British-based Cusk, whose novel Outline tells the story of a novelist teaching a writing workshop in Athens one summer, the nominees for the English-language fiction prize are Helen Humphreys for her novel The Evening Chorus, partly set in a German PoW camp during the Second World War; Saskatchewan's Guy Vanderhaeghe – a two-time winner of this prize – for his short story collection Daddy Lenin and Other Stories; lawyer-turned-writer Clifford Jackman for his novel The Winter Family, about a gang of outlaws on the lam in the wake of the American Civil War; and poet and playwright Kate Cayley for her collection of short fiction How You Were Born, which won the Trillium Book Award earlier this year.
The English-language finalists for non-fiction are Ted Bishop for The Social Life of Ink: Culture, Wonder, and Our Relationship with the Written Word; David Halton for Dispatches from the Front: Matthew Halton, Canada's Voice at War; Michael Harris for Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada's Radical Makeover; Armand Garnet Ruffo for Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird; and Mark L. Winston for Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive.
In the category of poetry, the English-language finalists are Kayla Czaga for For Your Safety Please Hold On; Liz Howard for Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent; M. Travis Lane for Crossover; Patrick Lane for Washita; and Robyn Sarah for My Shoes Are Killing Me.
For English-language drama, the nominees are Marcus Youssef and James Long for Winners and Losers; Beth Graham for The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble; Tara Grammy and Tom Arthur Davis for Mahmoud; Bryden MacDonald for Odd Ducks; and David Yee for carried away on the crest of a wave.
For French-to-English translation the finalists are David Scott Hamilton for his translation of Claudine Dumont's Captive; Lazer Lederhendler for his translation of Perrine Leblanc's The Lake; Rhonda Mullins for her translation of Jocelyne Saucier's Twenty-One Cardinals; Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli for their translation of Emmanuelle Walter's Stolen Sisters: The Story of Two Missing Girls, Their Families and How Canada Has Failed Indigenous Women; and Donald Winkler for his translation of Roch Carrier's Montcalm and Wolfe: Two Men Who Forever Changed the Course of Canadian History.
Finally, in children's literature, the English-language finalists for "text" are Darren Groth for Are You Seeing Me?; Dan Bar-el for Audrey (cow); Susin Nielsen for We Are All Made of Molecules; Caroline Pignat for The Gospel Truth; and Emil Sher for Young Man with Camera, while the finalists for illustrated books are Andy Jones and Darka Erdelji for Jack, the King of Ashes; JonArno Lawson and Sydney Smith for Sidewalk Flowers; Kyo Maclear and Marion Arbona for The Good Little Book; John Martz for A Cat Named Tim and Other Stories; and Mélanie Watt for Bug in a Vacuum.