Vinh Nguyen, katherena vermette, and Lorna Goodison have been named as contenders for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Awards. Administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, these prestigious awards cover seven English-language categories, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people’s literature (text and illustration), drama, and French-to-English translation. A total of $450,000 is distributed among the winners annually, with $25,000 going to each category winner and $1,000 to each finalist.
The finalists and winners are selected by peer assessment committees for each category, with the official announcement of the winners scheduled for November 6, 2025. Vinh Nguyen is in the running for the nonfiction category with his memoir “The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse,” chronicling his family’s migration from post-war Vietnam to Canada and reflecting on the contemporary diaspora experience. katherena vermette is a fiction finalist with her novel “real ones,” following her success as a notable Métis writer and editor. Lorna Goodison is nominated in the poetry category for her unique translation of Dante’s Inferno set in Jamaica.
These literary awards hold significance not only for the winners but also for the broader literary community. The Canada Council for the Arts, which oversees the awards, is also connected to the CBC Literary Prizes, further highlighting the impact and reach of these esteemed accolades within the Canadian literary landscape.
