Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction
The Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a non-fiction book written in English. Since 1987[1] it is one of fourteen Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, seven each for creators of English- and French-language books. Originally presented by the Canadian Authors Association, the Governor General's Awards program became a project of the Canada Council for the Arts in 1959.[2]
The program was created in 1937 and inaugurated that November for 1936 publications in two English-language categories, conventionally called the 1936 Governor General's Awards.[1] Beginning in 1942 there were two winners annually, with separate awards presented for creative non-fiction and academic non-fiction;[3] however, this was discontinued after the 1958 awards, and then returned to a single non-fiction category.
The winners alone were announced until 1979, when Canada Council released in advance a shortlist of three nominees. Since then, the advance shortlist has numbered three to five.
Winners and nominees
1930s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
1936 | Thomas Beattie Roberton | TBR: Newspaper Pieces |
1937 | Stephen Leacock | My Discovery of the West |
1938 | John Murray Gibbon | Canadian Mosaic |
1939 | Laura Salverson | Confessions of an Immigrant's Daughter |
1940s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
1940 | J. F. C. Wright | Slava Bohu |
1941 | Emily Carr | Klee Wyck |
1942 | Bruce Hutchison | The Unknown Country |
Edgar McInnis | The Unguarded Frontier | |
1943 | E. K. Brown | On Canadian Poetry |
John D. Robins | The Incomplete Anglers | |
1944 | Dorothy Duncan | Partner in Three Worlds |
Edgar McInnis | The War: Fourth Year | |
1945 | Ross Munro | Gauntlet to Overlord |
Evelyn M. Richardson | We Keep a Light | |
1946 | Frederick Philip Grove | In Search of Myself |
Arthur R. M. Lower | Colony to Nation | |
1947 | William Sclater | Haida |
R. MacGregor Dawson | The Government of Canada | |
1948 | Thomas H. Raddall | Halifax, Warden of the North |
C. P. Stacey | The Canadian Army, 1939-1945 | |
1949 | Hugh MacLennan | Cross-country |
R. MacGregor Dawson | Democratic Government in Canada |
1950s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
1950 | Marjorie Wilkins Campbell | The Saskatchewan |
W. L. Morton | The Progressive Party in Canada | |
1951 | Frank MacKinnon | The Government of Prince Edward Island |
Josephine Phelan | The Ardent Exile | |
1952 | Donald G. Creighton | John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician |
Bruce Hutchison | The Incredible Canadian | |
1953 | J. M. S. Careless | Canada, A Story of Challenge |
N. J. Berrill | Sex and the Nature of Things | |
1954 | Hugh MacLennan | Thirty and Three |
Arthur R. M. Lower | This Most Famous Stream | |
1955 | N. J. Berrill | Man's Emerging Mind |
Donald G. Creighton | John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain | |
1956 | Pierre Berton | The Mysterious North |
Joseph Lister Rutledge | Century of Conflict | |
1957 | Thomas H. Raddall | The Path of Destiny |
Bruce Hutchison | Canada: Tomorrow's Giant | |
1958 | Pierre Berton | Klondike |
Joyce Hemlow | The History of Fanny Burney | |
1959 | No award presented |
1960s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
1960 | Frank H. Underhill | In Search of Canadian Liberalism |
1961 | T. A. Goudge | The Ascent of Life |
1962 | Marshall McLuhan | The Gutenberg Galaxy |
1963 | J.M.S. Careless | Brown of the Globe |
1964 | Phyllis Grosskurth | John Addington Symonds |
1965 | James Eayrs | In Defence of Canada |
1966 | George Woodcock | The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell |
1967 | Norah Story | The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature |
1968 | Mordecai Richler | Cocksure and Hunting Tigers Under Glass |
1969 | No award presented |
1970s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
1970 | No award presented | |
1971 | Pierre Berton | The Last Spike |
1972 | No award presented | |
1973 | Michael Bell | Painters in a New Land |
1974 | Charles Ritchie | The Siren Years |
1975 | Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson | Hallowed Walls |
1976 | Carl Berger | The Writing of Canadian History |
1977 | Frank Scott | Essays on the Constitution |
1978 | Roger Caron | Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars |
1979 | Maria Tippett | Emily Carr |
Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn | C.D. Howe | |
Larry Pratt and John Richards | Prairie Capitalism |
1980s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
1980 | Jeffrey Simpson | Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration |
John Fraser | The Chinese: Portrait of a People | |
Donald MacKay | Scotland Farewell: The People of the Hector | |
1981 | George Calef | Caribou and the Barren-Lands |
Claude Bissell | The Young Vincent Massey | |
Elspeth Cameron | Hugh MacLennan: A Writer's Life | |
1982 | Christopher Moore | Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town |
Northrop Frye | The Great Code: The Bible and Literature | |
Christina McCall-Newman | Grits: An Intimate Portrait of The Liberal Party | |
1983 | Jeffery Williams | Byng of Vimy |
Ken Dryden | The Game | |
H. S. Ferns | Reading from Left to Right: One Man's Political History | |
1984 | Sandra Gwyn | The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier |
Bob Beal and Rod Macleod | Prairie Fire: The 1885 North-West Rebellion | |
Graham Fraser | P.Q.: René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois in Power | |
1985 | Ramsay Cook | The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada |
Michael D. Behiels | Prelude to Quebec's Quiet Revolution: Liberalism versus Neo-nationalism | |
John Herd Thompson | Canada 1922-1939: Decades of Discord | |
P. B. Waite | The Man from Halifax: Sir John Thompson, Prime Minister | |
1986 | Northrop Frye | Northrop Frye on Shakespeare |
Claude Bissell | The Imperial Canadian | |
Phyllis Grosskurth | Melanie Klein | |
Witold Rybczynski | Home | |
1987 | Michael Ignatieff | The Russian Album |
Janice Kulyk Keefer | Under Eastern Eyes | |
P. K. Page | Brazilian Journal | |
1988 | Anne Collins | In the Sleep Room |
Pierre Berton | The Arctic Grail | |
Alan Borovoy | When Freedoms Collide | |
Edith Iglauer | Fishing with John | |
1989 | Robert Calder | Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham |
Janice Boddy | Wombs and Alien Spirits | |
Robert MacNeil | Wordstruck | |
Dale A. Russell | An Odyssey in Time: The Dinosaurs of North America |
1990s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
1990 | Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall | Trudeau and Our Times |
Timothy Findley | Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer's Workbook | |
Eugene Forsey | A Life on the Fringe: The Memoirs of Eugene Forsey | |
Ron Graham | God's Dominion: A Sceptic's Quest | |
James King | The Last Modern: A Life of Herbert Read | |
1991 | Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo | Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past |
Northrop Frye | Words With Power | |
Kristjana Gunnars | Zero Hour | |
D. L. MacDonald | Poor Polidori: A Critical Biography of the Author of "The Vampyre" | |
Rosemary Sullivan | By Heart: Elizabeth Smart, A Life | |
1992 | Maggie Siggins | Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm |
Michael Bliss | Plague: A Story of Smallpox in Montreal | |
Ken Cuthbertson | Inside: The Biography of John Gunther | |
Michael R. Marrus | Mr. Sam: The Life and Times of Samuel Bronfman | |
1993 | Karen Connelly | Touch the Dragon |
Marq de Villiers | The Heartbreak Grape: A Journey in Search of the Perfect Pinot Noir | |
Marian Fowler | In a Gilded Cage | |
Jane Jacobs | Systems of Survival | |
Noël Mostert | Frontiers | |
1994 | John A. Livingston | Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication |
Sharon Butala | The Perfection of the Morning: An Apprenticeship in Nature | |
Denise Chong | The Concubine's Children: Portrait of a Family | |
Joan Haggerty | The Invitation: A Memoir of Family Love and Reconciliation | |
Peter Larisey | Light for a Cold Land: Lawren Harris's Work and Life-An Interpretation | |
1995 | Rosemary Sullivan | Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen |
Charles Foran | The Last House of Ulster: A Family in Belfast | |
Linda McQuaig | Shooting the Hippo | |
Sid Marty | Leaning on the Wind | |
1996 | John Ralston Saul | The Unconscious Civilization |
Roy MacGregor | The Home Team: Fathers, Sons & Hockey | |
T. F. Rigelhof | A Blue Boy in a Black Dress | |
Lake Sagaris | After the First Death: A Journey Through Chile, Time, Mind | |
Merilyn Simonds | The Convict Lover: A True Story | |
1997 | Rachel Manley | Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood |
Wade Davis | One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest | |
Catherine Dunphy | Morgentaler: A Difficult Hero | |
Terry Glavin | This Ragged Place: Travels Across the Landscape | |
Blair Stonechild and Bill Waiser | Loyal Till Death: Indians and the North-West Rebellion | |
1998 | David Adams Richards | Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi |
Wayne Grady | The Quiet Limit of the World: A Journey to the North Pole to Investigate Global Warming | |
Charlotte Gray | Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King | |
Judy Schultz | Mamie's Children: Three Generations of Prairie Women | |
Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson | Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman | |
1999 | Marq de Villiers | Water |
Donald Harman Akenson | Surpassing Wonder | |
Michael Bliss | William Osler | |
Wayson Choy | Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood | |
Wayne Johnston | Baltimore's Mansion |
2000s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
2000 | Nega Mezlekia | Notes from the Hyena's Belly |
Robert Bringhurst | A Story as Sharp as a Knife | |
Trevor Herriot | River in a Dry Land | |
A. B. McKillop | The Spinster and the Prophet | |
2001 | Thomas Homer-Dixon | The Ingenuity Gap |
Susan Crean | The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr | |
Ross A. Laird | Grain of Truth: The Ancient Lessons of Craft | |
Alberto Manguel | Reading Pictures: A History of Love and Hate | |
Jack Todd | The Taste of Metal: A Deserter's Story | |
2002 | Andrew Nikiforuk | Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil |
Carolyn Abraham | Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein's Brain | |
Jill Frayne | Starting Out in the Afternoon: A Mid-Life Journey into Wild Land | |
Stephen Henighan | When Words Deny the World: The Reshaping of Canadian Writing | |
Don McKay | Vis à Vis: Field Notes on Poetry & Wilderness | |
2003 | Margaret MacMillan | Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World |
Andrew Clark | A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold Pringle | |
Andrew Cohen | While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World | |
Maggie de Vries | Vancouver, for Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister | |
Ross King | Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling | |
2004 | Roméo Dallaire | Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda |
Anne Coleman | I'll Tell You a Secret: A Memory of Seven Summers | |
Christopher Dewdney | Acquainted With the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark | |
Jane Jacobs | Dark Age Ahead | |
Jan Zwicky | Wisdom & Metaphor | |
2005 | John Vaillant | The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed |
Ted Bishop | Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books | |
Michael Mitchell | The Molly Fire | |
Edward Shorter | Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire | |
Jessica Warner | The Incendiary: The Misadventures of John the Painter, First Modern Terrorist | |
2006 | Ross King | The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism |
Afua Cooper | The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal | |
Susanne Reber and Robert Renaud | Starlight Tour: The Last, Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild | |
Michael Strangelove | The Empire of Mind: Digital Piracy and the Anti-Capitalist Movement | |
Christine Wiesenthal | The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther | |
2007 | Karolyn Smardz Frost | I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad |
Rodrigo Bascunan and Christian Pearce | Enter the Babylon System: Unpacking Gun Culture from Samuel Colt to 50 Cent | |
John English | Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Volume One: 1919-1968 | |
Stephanie Nolen | 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa | |
Bridget Stutchbury | Silence of the Songbirds: How We Are Losing the World's Songbirds and What We Can Do to Save Them | |
2008 | Christie Blatchford | Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army |
Douglas Hunter | God’s Mercies: Rivalry, Betrayal and the Dream of Discovery | |
Sid Marty | The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek | |
James Orbinski | An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century | |
Chris Turner | The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need | |
2009 | M. G. Vassanji | A Place Within: Rediscovering India |
Randall Hansen | Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942-45 | |
Trevor Herriot | Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds | |
Eric Margolis | American Raj: Liberation or Domination? (Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World) | |
Eric Siblin | The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece |
2010s
Year | Author | Title |
---|---|---|
2010 | Allan Casey | Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada |
Elizabeth Abbott | A History of Marriage | |
Ian Brown | The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for His Disabled Son | |
Karen Connelly | Burmese Lessons: A Love Story | |
John English | Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 | |
2011 | Charles Foran | Mordecai: The Life and Times |
Nathan M. Greenfield | The Damned: The Canadians at the Battle of Hong Kong and the POW Experience, 1941-45 | |
Richard Gwyn | Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, Volume Two: 1867-1891 | |
JJ Lee | The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit | |
Andrew Nikiforuk | Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America's Great Forests | |
2012 | Ross King | Leonardo and the Last Supper |
Nahlah Ayed | A Thousand Farewells: A Reporter's Journey from Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring | |
Carol Bishop-Gwyn | The Pursuit of Perfection: A Life of Celia Franca | |
Wade Davis | Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest | |
Noah Richler | What We Talk About When We Talk About War | |
2013 | Sandra Djwa | Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page |
Carolyn Abraham | The Juggler's Children: A Journey into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us | |
Nina Munk | The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty | |
Allen Smutylo | The Memory of Water | |
Priscila Uppal | Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother | |
2014 | Michael Harris | The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection |
Arno Kopecky | The Oil Man and the Sea: Navigating the Northern Gateway | |
Edmund Metatawabin and Alexandra Shimo | Up Ghost River: A Chief’s Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History | |
Maria Mutch | Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours | |
2015 | Mark L. Winston | Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive |
Ted Bishop | The Social Life of Ink: Culture, Wonder, and Our Relationship with the Written Word | |
David Halton | Dispatches from the Front: Matthew Halton, Canada's Voice at War | |
Michael Harris | Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada's Radical Makeover | |
Armand Garnet Ruffo | Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird | |
2016 | Bill Waiser | A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 |
Kamal Al-Solaylee | Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (To Everyone) | |
Teva Harrison | In-Between Days: A Memoir about Living with Cancer | |
Harold R. Johnson | Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (and Yours) | |
Marc Raboy | Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World | |
2017 | Graeme Wood | The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State |
Sharon Butala | Where I Live Now: A Journey through Love and Loss to Healing and Hope | |
Sarah de Leeuw | Where It Hurts | |
Elaine Dewar | The Handover: How Bigwigs and Bureaucrats Transferred Canada's Best Publisher and the Best Part of our Literary Heritage to a Foreign Multinational | |
Carol Off | All We Leave Behind: A Reporter's Journey into the Lives of Others | |
2018 | Darrel J. McLeod | Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age |
Carys Cragg | Dead Reckoning: How I Came To Meet the Man Who Murdered My Father | |
Aida Edemariam | The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History | |
Terese Marie Mailhot | Heart Berries | |
Abu Bakr Al-Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung | Homes: A Refugee Story | |
2019 | Don Gillmor | To the River: Losing My Brother |
Brian Harvey | Sea Trial: Sailing After My Father | |
Naomi K. Lewis | Tiny Lights for Travellers | |
Alan Walker | Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times | |
Dan Werb | City of Omens: A Search for the Missing Women of the Borderlands |
References
- "Governor General's Literary Awards" [table of winners, 1936–1999]. online guide to writing in canada (track0.com/ogwc). Retrieved 2015-08-18.
- "Governor General's Literary Awards". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2015-08-18.
- "Win Governor-General's Literary Awards". Victoria Times-Colonist. June 19, 1943. p. 4. Retrieved January 10, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.