Elana Rabinovitch the Executive Director of Giller Prize stands on stage during the awards ceremony in Toronto, Nov. 18, 2024.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Nine newcomers and a couple of usual suspects made the longlist of 14 authors nominated for this year’s Giller Prize. The $100,000 award is the country’s richest for fiction.
The most familiar name is Newfoundland’s Wayne Johnston, who finds himself longlisted for the sixth time. His novel The Novice of Holloway Hall is billed by publisher Knopf Canada as a “boisterous, sweeping tragicomic saga of faith, loyalty and family secrets that refuse to stay buried.”
Mr. Johnston is now tied with past Giller-winner David Bergen for the most longlist nominations in the 32-year history of the prize.
Newfoundland author Wayne Johnston is among 14 authors longlisted for the 2026 Giller Prize.Rose Langhout/Supplied
U.S.-based Canadian novelist and screenwriter Patrick deWitt is longlisted for the fourth time for Dodge City, published by House of Anansi Press. The Summer of Love-set novel about a draft dodger leaving California for Canada is set to be released on Sept. 29.
All the nominated titles are novels, though short-story collections and graphic novels are eligible. More than 140 works written in English by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and published in Canada between Oct. 1, 2025, and Sept. 30, 2026, were submitted by publishers the country.
They were considered by a jury, which for the first time was not made up of mostly authors. This year’s nine-member panel is composed exclusively of owners, managers and staffers from independent Canadian booksellers representing seven provinces and one territory.
“We wanted to shake things up this year and put the spotlight on the people who live and breathe Canadian literature every single day,” Giller executive director Elana Rabinovitch said earlier this year, explaining the break with tradition.
The participating stores are Knowledge Bookstore, Brampton, Ont.; The Book Wardrobe, Mississauga, Ont.; Yellowknife Books, Yellowknife; Bookmark, Charlottetown and Halifax; McNally Robinson Booksellers, Winnipeg and Saskatoon; Mosaic Books, Kelowna, B.C.; Westminster Bookmark, Fredericton; and Ben McNally Books, Toronto.
“Independent bookstore owners and workers are the ones on the floor, talking directly to readers and seeing which books resonate the most,” Ms. Rabinovitch said when the new jury arrangement was announced. “They see firsthand which books catch fire in real time, and that felt like exactly the kind of perspective we wanted at the heart of the prize.”
Among the 12 other longlisted authors are nine first-time nominees, four of them debut novelists.
- Jennifer Chevalier, for The Winter Witch, published by Simon & Schuster Canada
- Patricia Finn, for The Golden Boy, published by HarperCollins
- Tara Gereaux, for Wild People Quiet, published by Scribner Canada
- Hollay Ghadery, for The Unravelling of Ou, published by Palimpsest Press
- Michelle Good, for Eliza Sunshine, published by Random House Canada
- Nicholas Herring, for Your Breath in Charcoal, published by Goose Lane Editions
- Nazanine Hozar, The Small Ones, published by Knopf Canada
- Colin McAdam, for Daphnis and Chloe, published by Biblioasis
- Mai Nguyen, for Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, published by Simon & Schuster Canada
- Lisa Robertson, for Riverwork, published by Coach House
- Patmeena Sabit, for Good People, published by Crown
- Cordelia Strube, for At Sea in a Sieve, published by ECW Press
Two publishers are represented on the longlist for the first time: Palimpsest Press, Windsor, Ont., and Goose Lane Editions, Fredericton.
The Giller shortlist will be announced on Oct. 5. The prize will be presented at a Toronto gala televised and streamed across CBC platforms on Nov. 16.
Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to state that the Giller jury was made up of nine members composed exclusively of owners, managers and staffers from independent Canadian booksellers representing seven provinces and one territory. The update also added Knowledge Bookstore, Brampton, Ont., and The Book Wardrobe, Mississauga, Ont., to the list of booksellers. The caption accompanying the photo of author Wayne Johnston incorrectly said he has been shortlisted for the 2026 Giller Prize; he has been longlisted.