5 Canadian writers reflect on identity in this series from the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award winners
A special series presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts
The English-language books that won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Awards in many respects explore the idea of changing and shifting identities.
CBC Books asked the winners to reflect further on the theme of identity in original works. The special series explores the complex ways we maintain, construct and subvert who we are — including what we represent to ourselves and the outside world.
Canadian authors Sarah Everett, Hannah Green, Kyo Maclear, Anuja Varghese and Jack Wong have all delivered an original piece of writing — from poetry to nonfiction to short story — inspired by this theme.
CBC's IDEAS will host an episode featuring participants from this original series.
This special series is presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts. Read on for links to these pieces.
Meditations on a Lake by Anuja Varghese
Anuja Varghese took a freewriting approach to think about the theme of identity for her original work. What emerged was a short story revolving around three generations of South Asian women and girls coming together upon the death of their highly respected family's patriarch.
What is there to complain about when we have been so blessed? What is there left to wish for? What is there to fear?- From Meditations on a Lake by Anuja Varghese
"I release the urn I have been clutching and my son releases me. We named him Adam. Our first-born. Then, after several failures, our only-born. His success (and he is so very successful) is our success; everyone knows it. What is there to complain about when we have been so blessed? What is there left to wish for? What is there to fear?" Varghese wrote.
Varghese won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction for her story collection Chrysalis.
Varghese is a Hamilton, Ont.-based writer and editor. Her stories have been recognized in the Prism International Short Fiction Contest and the Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Chrysalis is her first book.
Singing in December by Kyo Maclear
Kyo Maclear's essay was inspired by thinking about life in a post-COVID reality — and what identity and narrative shifts would be required to open society onto a more humane, collective world. Her essay focuses on her connection to a local singing group and of ways of flourishing that tap communal energies rather than individual mission-driven ones.
David sings beautifully and for the 25 years we have been together, music has been the 'feeling tone' of our lives. He counts on music and I count on him- From Singing in December by Kyo Maclear
"David sings. For the 25 years we have been together, his passions have been singing and socializing. This is interesting to me because my passions are writing and tunneling into myself. I spend most of my time inside my house or inside the house in my head.
David sings beautifully and for the 25 years we have been together, music has been the 'feeling tone' of our lives. He counts on music and I count on him," Maclear wrote.
Maclear won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction for Unearthing.
Maclear is an essayist, novelist and children's author. Her books have been translated into 15 languages, won a Governor General's Literary Award and been nominated for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, among others. Her memoir Birds Art Life was a finalist for the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and won the 2018 Trillium Book Award.
Chainsaw Aesthetic by Hannah Green
Hannah Green wrote a poem that explores binary oppositions and subverting narratives. Green examines a symbiotic duality between good and evil and hero and villain.
"I went through hell and all I got was this stupid prescription.
I'm my own worst villain by default; I have never been the best at anything.
At the right temperature, we can almost disappear — think about that.
I wanted to be extraordinary but I am extra ordinary instead.
I'm drunk again and feeling nostalgic. Which is to say I live in the past.
Which is to say the past lives in me and this exorcism isn't working."
Green won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry for her collection Xanax Cowboy.
Green is a Winnipeg-based writer and poetry editor. She was a poetry finalist for the 2021 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.
dying thing by Sarah Everett
Sarah Everett wrote an original poem inspired by her experience being a first-generation Canadian immigrant. She explored what it felt like to arrive in Canada and the struggle to retain her cultural identity in a new land.
"Embryonic cocoon
between metal appendages.
This making new of all things,
This wreckage of everything old,
Where to live is to die,
Sometimes slowly or all at once.
Sudden, infant,
Immigrate, naturalize,
Christen, rename."
Everett won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for literature — text for her middle-grade novel The Probability of Everything.
Everett is a Nigerian-Canadian author of several books for teens, currently based in Alberta. Her YA and middle-grade books include Some Other Now, How to Live without You and No One Here is Lonely.
Tupelo by Jack Wong
Jack Wong wrote an original short story during his recent travels as an ecotourist. He was thinking about how the way we relate to nature is not so unlike that perennial question we ask of each other — "Where are you really from?" The story revolves about what happens when a girl finds a huge reptile under her bed.
Reina had seen such creatures before, though only, of course, on the internet. Tupelo (she decided to call it Tupelo) looked very much like something you'd call an alligator — or a crocodile.- From Tupelo by Jack Wong
"When Reina first discovered the monster under her bed, she thought it a fearsome-looking thing. It had a long, rotund body pressed belly-to-the-ground, baring a scaly backside; lines of knobby spikes ran down its length, flaring sharp as the ridges converged at its tail. At its head, a mouthful of sharp teeth glistened under a gnarled snout," Wong wrote.
"Reina had seen such creatures before, though only, of course, on the internet. Tupelo (she decided to call it Tupelo) looked very much like something you'd call an alligator — or a crocodile."
Wong won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — illustrated books for his picture book When You Can Swim, which he wrote and illustrated.
Wong is a Halifax-based author and illustrator who was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Vancouver.
