The finalists for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for drama
The $25,000 prizes recognize the best Canadian books of the year
Here are the finalists for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for drama.
The Governor General's Literary Awards are one of Canada's oldest and most prestigious literary prizes.
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 French-to-English translation. Seven French-language awards are also given out in the same categories.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a partner of the CBC Literary Prizes.
The drama category was assessed by Aaron Bushkowsky, Tai Amy Grauman and Julie Tamiko Manning.
You can see the finalists in all seven categories here.
Get to know the drama finalists below.
Forgiveness by Hiro Kanagawa
Forgiveness is an adaptation of Mark Sakamoto's memoir Forgiveness, which won Canada Reads in 2018. Forgiveness tells the parallel stories of Sakamoto's maternal grandfather, Ralph MacLean, and paternal grandmother, Mitsue Sakamoto, during the Second World War. Ralph, a soldier from Canada's east coast, was a prisoner of war in Japan, while Mitsue, a Japanese Canadian from Vancouver, was sent to an internment camp.
Hiro Kanagawa is a Vancouver-based writer and actor. He received the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama in 2017 for his play Indian Arm.
Is My Microphone On? by Jordan Tannahill
Is My Microphone On? is a play in the form of a protest song that examines the burning world young people have inherited. It questions the previous generations for the state of the world they've left and laments about the choices they'll be forced to make in the future because of it.
Jordan Tannahill is a playwright, author, and director of film and theatre. He won the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for drama for the plays Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom. He previously won the prize in 2014 for Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays and has also published a novel called Liminal.
The Enchanted Loom by Suvendrini Lena
The Enchanted Loom is a play presented in both English and Tamil about Thanagan and his family who are reeling with the scars of the Sri Lankan civil war. Now in Canada, they watch the final days of the war play out, while Thanagan's possible neurological surgery threatens to offer either healing or cause more pain.
Suvendrini Lena is a mother, a playwright and staff neurologist at Women's College Hospital. She is also an assistant professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.
The War Being Waged by Darla Contois
The War Being Waged is a poetic play that follows three generations of Indigenous women as they try to move forward from all the ways that Canada has torn them apart.
Darla Contois is a Cree-Salteaux performer and playwright from Misipawistik Cree Nation in Manitoba, currently based in Winnipeg. She played the role of Esther Rosenblum in the show Little Bird.
William Shakespeareʼs As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal
William Shakespeareʼs As You Like It: A Radical Retelling is a subversive update to Shakespeare's classic with an Indigenous perspective. It balances bawdy humour and raw emotions to challenge Canada's relationship with Indigenous people.
Cliff Cardinal is a playwright and actor born on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His work has been recognized with the Buddies in Bad Times Vanguard Award for Risk and Innovation, the RBC Tarragon Emerging Playwright Award and the REVEAL Indigenous Arts Award. Cardinal has also written a play called Huff & Stitch.
