2008 Winners: English-language
View French-language winners
Fiction
Non-fiction
Poetry
Drama
Children’s Literature – text
Children’s Literature – illustration
Translation – French to English
Nino Ricci, The Origin of Species
(Doubleday Canada; distributed by Random House of Canada) (ISBN 978-0-385-66360-1)
Author photo by Rafy
Biography
Nino Ricci's first novel, Lives of the Saints, won the 1990 Governor General's Award, spent 75 weeks on the Globe and Mail's best-seller list, and garnered international acclaim. This book was extended over the following years into a trilogy about the experiences of an Italian family before and after they emigrated to Canada. In 2003, the trilogy was adapted for a miniseries staring Sophia Loren. An active member of Toronto's writing community, Nino Ricci is past president of PEN Canada, a human rights organization that assists writers around the world who are persecuted for their work. Born in Leamington, Ontario, he lives in Toronto.
Jury's comment
Alex Fratarcangeli, a modern Prufrock, must survive in the multiethnic complexity of Montreal in the 1980s. The Origin of Species is written with great humanity, realism and wit. Told in windowpane prose, this story reads as if it has come up through our collective memory. With the shock of recognition, we gain a new understanding of our fragility and our strength.
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Christie Blatchford, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army
(Doubleday Canada; distributed by Random House of Canada) (ISBN 978-0-385-66466-0)
Author photo by The Canadian Press Images/Patrick Doyle
Biography
Christie Blatchford is a high-profile columnist with The Globe and Mail. Over her 25-year career she has worked with other major dailies. Notably, she covered sports, lifestyle, current affairs and crime at the Toronto Sun. She is a winner of the National Newspaper Award for column writing and is known for her ability to connect emotionally with her subjects and readers on a wide range of topics. In 2006 she took three trips to Afghanistan's Kandahar province to report on the experiences of Canadian soldiers, which formed the basis of Fifteen Days. A first-time winner of the Governor General's Award, Christie Blatchford was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec and now lives in Toronto.
Jury's comment
Christie Blatchford's Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army is a dramatic and vivid chronicle that proves reportage and the language of common speech can rise to the challenge of literature. Blatchford's writing allows the soldiers and their families to speak to us in their own voices, without adornment.
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Jacob Scheier, More to Keep Us Warm
(ECW Press; distributed by Jaguar) (ISBN 978-1-55022-794-9)
Biography
Jacob Scheier, 28, is not only the youngest laureate of this year's Governor General's Awards, but he wins the award with his debut collection, More to Keep Us Warm. A rising talent in poetry, he received previous acclaim as a finalist for CBC Radio's second annual Poetry Face-Off, and as winner of the 2003 Art Bar Discovery Night, an annual event hosted by Canada's longest-running poetry reading series. His poems have been published in several literary journals, including Descant and The White Wall Review, Ryerson University's journal of literary and visual arts. Jacob Scheier was formerly editor of existere, York University's journal of art and literature. He lives in Toronto.
Jury's comment
More to Keep Us Warm invites the reader into a world of hope, pain, laughter and forgiveness – elements that reconcile the human drama through the power of love and sheer poetic invention. With deep affection for his work, Jacob Scheier manages his debut collection with precision, grace and stunning metaphor.
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Catherine Banks, Bone Cage
(Playwrights Canada Press; distributed by the publisher) (ISBN 978-0-88754-787-4)
Author photo by Alex MacAulay Photographic
Biography
Catherine Banks' work has been described as poetic, darkly humorous, courageous and beautifully theatrical; her characters as Atlantic Gothic. She began her career as a special education teacher, and published her first play in 1991. Her work has earned her national acclaim: her one-person show, Bitter Rose, was aired on Bravo! Canada. A founding member and past president of Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre, Catherine Banks says she learned the power of drama from listening to real-life stories in her grandmother's kitchen. She lives in Sambro, Nova Scotia, a rural fishing village in the greater Halifax area.
Jury's comment
With her expert command of dramatic metaphor, Catherine Banks shows us the life-blood of rural Canada flowing through the conflicted, bone-caged human heart. What is the cost to the human spirit, she asks, when good people are forced by circumstance to kill the thing they love – in this case, the Canadian wilderness? The playwright finds that which is most noble in unexpected places, the heroic in what appears to be the simplest of lives.
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John Ibbitson, The Landing
(Kids Can Press; distributed by University of Toronto Press) (ISBN 978-1-55453-234-6 (bound) / 978-1-55453-238-4 (pbk))
Biography
A laureate in children's literature, John Ibbitson is probably best known as a journalist. At present the Globe and Mail's Washington correspondent and columnist, he has worked for major dailies for the past 20 years and was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for his coverage of the inner workings of Paul Martin's government. He is the author of three books on Ontario and Canadian politics, including, most recently, The Polite Revolution: Perfecting the Canadian Dream (2005). John Ibbitson has also written several novels for young adults, and this year wins his first GG. Born in Gravenhurst, Ontario, and formerly living in Ottawa and Toronto, he is currently based in Washington, D.C.
Jury's comment
A superbly crafted story, The Landing takes us to the Ontario Muskoka region of the 1930s. As an interpretation of a place and time, and a young man's coming-of-age, it never falters. It is a novel as timeless as the music and the adolescent imagination that lie at its centre.
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Stéphane Jorisch, The Owl and the Pussycat
Text by Edward Lear. (Kids Can Press; distributed by University of Toronto Press) (ISBN 978-1-55337-828-0 (bound) / 978-1-55453-232-2 (pbk))
Biography
Stéphane Jorisch fell into the world of illustration when he was a young boy: his father, an illustrator of comic strips for European daily newspapers, was a major influence. Throughout his career he has illustrated for both English and French children's books. For the 2008 GG awards, aside from being recognized as a laureate for The Owl and the Pussycat, he was also a finalist in the French-language category for his illustration of Gilles Vigneault's Un cadeau pour Sophie (2008 winner of the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award). Stéphane Jorisch is a four-time GG winner and five-time finalist. Currently based in Montreal, he was born in Brussels and grew up in Lachine, Quebec.
Jury's comment
Light, poetic, playful, imaginative, bizarre and ingenious illustrations match the text superbly. Stéphane Jorisch's art brings new colour and depth to this well-known poem. Sit down in an armchair with this book and let it transport you into its magical world.
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Lazer Lederhendler, Nikolski
(Knopf Canada; distributed by Random House of Canada) (ISBN 978-0-676-97879-7)
English translation of Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner (Éditions Alto).
Biography
Lazer Lederhendler is no stranger to the GGs. Three of his works of translation have already been recognized as GG finalists – The Sparrow Has Cut the Day in Half by Claire Dé (1999), Larry Volt by Pierre Tourangeau (2002), and The Immaculate Conception by Gaétan Soucy (2006). The Immaculate Conception was also shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and went on to win the 2007 Quebec Writers' Federation award for translation. This is his first Governor General's Award. Lazer Lederhendler's own writing has been published in a number of Canadian and Quebec journals. He lives in Montreal, and currently teaches translation at Université de Sherbrooke.
Jury's comment
One senses the affinity between the translator and his writer in this English-language version of Nikolski, a delightfully light-hearted, deeply-rooted story. The wonderful magic in the original is also present in the translation. Lederhendler is clearly a translator with imagination and a terrific sense of language. His work remains wickedly faithful to the original.
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