Michael Crummey, Amanda Parris and Armand Garnet Ruffo among 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards finalists

The $25,000 prizes are awarded in seven categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people's literature — text, young people's literature — illustration, drama and translation.

CBC Books · Posted: Oct 02, 2019 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: October 4, 2019

Michael Crummey, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Amanda Parris are three of the finalists for the 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards. (Ariel Hogan, CBC, Wolsak & Wynn)

Michael Crummey, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Amanda Parris are among the finalists for the 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards.

The prizes, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, are awarded in seven English-language categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people's literature — text, young people's literature — illustration, drama and translation. Seven French-language awards are also given out in the same categories. You can learn about the French-language finalists here.

Crummey is a finalist in the fiction category for his novel The Innocents, a novel about two young siblings surviving on their own in a remote cove after the death of their parents.

The Innocents is also shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

With novel The Innocents, Michael Crummey explores strength, spirit and survival in 18th century Newfoundland

Armand Garnet Ruffo is a finalist in the poetry category for TREATY #, a collection that explores the various relationships humans have to each other and to the land.

Why Joseph A. Dandurand recommends reading TREATY # by Armand Garnet Ruffo

Amanda Parris, who is the host of the CBC Arts show Exhibitionists, is a finalist in the drama category for Other Side of the Game, which is about two black women from different decades — the 1970s and today — who are community organizers.

Watch The Exhibitionists on CBC Gem

Three past winners are nominated in the young people's literature — illustration category: Sydney Smith for Small in the City, Julie Flett for Bird Song and Isabelle Arsenault for Albert's Quiet Quest.

Cary Fagan has picked up two nominations for two different books. In the fiction category, Fagan is a finalist for his novel The Student and, in the young people's literature — illustration category, he is shortlisted for King Mouse with illustrator Dena Seiferling.

Brian Francis is nominated in the category for young people's literature — text for his first YA novel, Break in Case of Emergency.

Prominent Canadian translators Sheila Fischman and Rhonda Mullins are nominated in the translation category for Vi by Kim Thúy and The Embalmer by Anne-Renée Caillé, respectively.

You can see a complete list of finalists below.

The winner in each category will receive $25,000. The winners will be announced on Oct. 29, 2019.

The Governor General's Literary Awards were created in 1937. Past winners include Thomas King, Madeleine Thien, Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood.

The Canada Council for the Arts is a partner of the CBC Literary Prizes.