Governor General's Literary Awards
Non-fiction
The Governor General's Literary Award for Non-fiction (English) is awarded annually for a book written by a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada.
Note: From 1942 to 1958, the nonfiction category was split into creative writing and academic writing.
See also: Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction (French)
2008
- Christie Blatchford – Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army
Also shortlisted:
- 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
2007
- Karolyn Smardz Frost – I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad
Also shortlisted:
- Rodrigo Bascuñán 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
2006
- Ross King – The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism
Also shortlisted:
- 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
2005
- John Vaillant – The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed
Also shortlisted:
- 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
2004
- Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire – Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Also shortlisted:
- 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
2003
- Margaret MacMillan – Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World
Also shortlisted:
- 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 – Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister
- Ross King – Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
2002
- Andrew Nikiforuk – Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil
Also shortlisted:
- 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: Fieldnotes on Poetry and Wilderness
2001
- Thomas Homer-Dixon – The Ingenuity Gap
Also shortlisted:
- 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
2000
- Nega Mezlekia – Notes from the Hyena's Belly
Also shortlisted:
- Robert Bringhurst – A Story as Sharp as a Knife
- Denise Chong – The Girl in the Picture
- Trevor Herriot – River in a Dry Land
- A.B. McKillop – The Spinster and the Prophet
1999
- Marq de Villiers – Water
Also shortlisted:
- Donald Harman Akenson – Surpassing Wonder - The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds
- Michael Bliss – William Osler - A Life in Medicine
- Wayson Choy – Paper Shadows - A Chinatown Childhood
- Wayne Johnston – Baltimore's Mansion - A Memoir
1998
- David Adams Richards – Lines on the Water - A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi
Also shortlisted:
- 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
1997
- Rachel Manley – Drumblair - Memories of a Jamaican Childhood
Also shortlisted:
- 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
1996
- John Ralston Saul – The Unconscious Civilization
Also shortlisted:
- Roy MacGregor – The Home Team
- T.F. Rigelhof – A Blue Boy in a Black Dress
- Lake Sagaris – After the First Death
- Merilyn Simonds – The Convict Lover
1995
- Rosemary Sullivan – Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen
Also shortlisted:
- Charles Foran – The Last House of Ulster: A Family in Belfast
- Linda McQuaig – Shooting the Hippo
- Sid Marty – Leaning on the Wind
1994
- John A. Livingston – Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication
Also shortlisted:
- 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
1993
- Karen Connelly – Touch the Dragon
Also shortlisted:
- 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
1992
- Maggie Siggins – Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm
Also shortlisted:
- 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
1991
- Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo – Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past
Also shortlisted:
- Northrop Frye – Words With Power
- Kristjana Gunnars – Zero Hour
- D.L. (Lorne) MacDonald – Poor Polidori: A Critical Biography of the Author of "The Vampyre"
- Rosemary Sullivan – By Heart: Elizabeth Smart, A Life
1990
- Stephen Clarkson & Christina McCall – Trudeau and Our Times
Also shortlisted:
- 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
1989
- Robert Calder – Willie - The Life of W. Somerset Maugham
Also shortlisted:
- Janice Boddy – Wombs and Alien Spirits
- Robert MacNeil – Wordstruck
- Dale A. Russell – An Odyssey in Time: The Dinosaurs of North America
1988
- Anne Collins – In the Sleep Room
Also shortlisted:
- Pierre Berton – The Arctic Grail
- Alan A. Borovoy – When Freedoms Collide
- Edith Iglauer – Fishing with John
1987
- Michael Ignatieff – The Russian Album
Also shortlisted:
- Janice Kulyk Keefer – Under Eastern Eyes
- P.K. Page – Brazilian Journal
1986
- Northrop Frye – Northrop Frye on Shakespeare
Also shortlisted:
- Claude Bissell – The Imperial Canadian
- Phyllis Grosskurth – Melanie Klein
- Witold Rybczynski – Home
1985
- Ramsay Cook – The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada
Also shortlisted:
- 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
1984
- Sandra Gwyn – The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier
Also shortlisted:
- Bob Beal and Rod Macleod – Prairie Fire: The 1885 North-West Rebellion
- Graham Fraser – P.Q.: René Levesque and the Parti Québécois in Power
1983
- Jeffery Williams – Byng of Vimy
Also shortlisted:
- Ken Dryden – The Game
- H.S. Ferns – Reading from Left to Right: One Man's Political History
1982
- Christopher Moore – Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town
Also shortlisted:
- Northrop Frye – The Great Code: The Bible and Literature
- Christina McCall-Newman – Grits: An Intimate Portrait of The Liberal Party
1981
- George Calef – Caribou and the barren-lands
Also shortlisted:
- Claude Bissell – The Young Vincent Massey
- Elspeth Cameron – Hugh MacLennan: A Writer's Life
1980
- Jeffrey Simpson – Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration
Also shortlisted:
- John Fraser – The Chinese: Portrait of a People
- Donald MacKay – Scotland Farewell: The People of the Hector
1979
- Maria Tippett – Emily Carr
Also shortlisted:
- Robert Bothwell & William Kilbourn – C.D. Howe
- Larry Pratt & John Richards – Prairie Capitalism
1978
- Roger Caron – Go-Boy!
1977
- Frank Scott – Essays on the Constitution
1976
- Carl Berger – The Writing of Canadian History
1975
- Marion MacRae & Anthony Adamson – Hallowed Walls
1974
- Charles Ritchie – The Siren Years
1973
- Michael Bell – Painters in a New Land
1971
- Pierre Berton – The Last Spike
1967
- Norah Story – The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature
1966
- George Woodcock – The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell
1965
- James Eayrs – In Defence of Canada
1964
- Phyllis Grosskurth – John Addington Symonds
1963
- J.M.S. Careless – Brown of the Globe
1962
- Marshall McLuhan – The Gutenberg Galaxy
1961
- T.A. Goudge – The Ascent of Life
1960
- Frank H. Underhill – In Search of Canadian Liberalism
1958
- Pierre Berton – Klondike
- Joyce Hemlow – The History of Fanny Burney
1957
- Bruce Hutchison – Canada: Tomorrow's Giant
- Thomas H. Raddall – The Path of Destiny
1956
- Pierre Berton – The Mysterious North
- Joseph Lister Rutledge – Century of Conflict
1955
- N.J. Berrill – Man's Emerging Mind
- Donald G. Creighton – John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain
1954
- Hugh MacLennan – Thirty and Three
- A.R.M. Lower – This Most Famous Stream
1953
- N.J. Berrill – Sex and the Nature of Things
- J.M.S. Careless – Canada, A Story of Challenge
1952
- Bruce Hutchison – The Incredible Canadian
- Donald G. Creighton – John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician
1951
- Josephine Phelan – The Ardent Exile
- Frank MacKinnon – The Government of Prince Edward Island
1950
- Marjorie Wilkins Campbell – The Saskatchewan
- W.L. Morton – The Progressive Party in Canada
1949
- Hugh MacLennan – Cross-country
- R. MacGregor Dawson – Democratic Government in Canada
1948
- Thomas H. Raddall – Halifax, Warden of the North
- C.P. Stacey – The Canadian Army, 1939-1945
1947
- William Sclater – Haida
- R. MacGregor Dawson – The Government of Canada
1946
- Philip Grove – In Search of Myself Frederick
- A.R.M. Lower – Colony to Nation
1945
- Evelyn M. Richardson – We Keep a Light
- Ross Munro – Gauntlet to Overlord
1944
- Dorothy Duncan – Partner in Three Worlds
- Edgar McInnis – The War: Fourth Year
1943
- John D. Robins – The Incomplete Anglers
- E.K. Brown – On Canadian Poetry
1942
- Bruce Hutchison – The Unknown Country
- Edgar McInnis – The Unguarded Frontier
1941
- Emily Carr – Klee Wyck
1940
- J.F.C. Wright – Slava Bohu
1939
- Laura G. Salverson – Confessions of an Immigrant's Daughter
1938
- John Murray Gibbon – Canadian Mosaic
1937
- Stephen Leacock – My Discovery of the West
1936
- T.B. Roberton – T.B.R. - newspaper pieces
