Fourteen books have been longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize. The $100,000 award annually recognizes the best in Canadian fiction.
The 2025 longlist features 12 novels and two short story collections, covering a wide range of subjects, from a 1800s train disaster, to life working in a nail salon and the stories of abducted children in Uganda.
It includes three previous winners of the prize. André Alexis won in 2015 for Fifteen Dogs and is now on the list for his short story collection Other Worlds. Ian Williams won the prize in 2019 for his novel, Reproduction, and is on this year’s longlist for You’ve Changed. Souvankham Thammavongsa won the 2020 Giller Prize for her short story collection How To Pronounce Knife and is now honoured for her novel Pick A Colour.
Three of the authors have connections to the CBC Literary Prizes. Joanna Cockerline, nominated for her novel Still, won second place for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2002. Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, longlisted for We, The Kindling, was also longlisted for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize. Amanda Leduc was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2014 and 2019, as well as the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2014. She’s on the Giller longlist for her novel Wild Life.
Here is the full 2025 Giller Prize longlist:
- Other Worlds by André Alexis
- We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad
- An Astonishment of Stars by Kirti Bhadresa
- We, The Kindling by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek
- The Tiger and the Cosmonaut by Eddy Boudel Tan
- Sugaring Off by Fanny Britt, translated by Susan Ouriou
- Still by Joanna Cockerline
- The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
- The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy
- The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight
- Wild Life by Amanda Leduc
- The Road Between Us by Bindu Suresh
- Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa
- You’ve Changed by Ian Williams
The longlist was chosen from more than 100 books by jury chair and former finalist Dionne Irving and jurors and authors Loghan Paylor and Deepa Rajagopalan.
“These texts demonstrate how we are an interconnected, global community, however cacophonous our collective cries,” said the jury in a press statement.
“The power of the voices on this year’s longlist astonished the judges. These authors urgently compel readers to be transported, to be lifted up, and ultimately, to love.”
The 2025 shortlist will be announced on Oct. 6 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 17.
The 2025 Giller Prize award ceremony will be broadcast on Monday, Nov. 17, at 9 p.m. ET (11:30 p.m. AT, 12 a.m. NT) on CBC TV and CBC Gem, with a livestream also available at 9 p.m. ET on CBC’s YouTube channel. It will also be broadcast on CBC Radio One and CBC Listen.
In 2023, the Giller Prize broadcast was twice interrupted by protesters taking issue with Scotiabank, the prize’s former main sponsor, because of the bank’s investment in Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence contractor.
In 2024, an organization called CanLit Responds gathered signatures of Canadian writers calling for the Giller Prize to divest from Scotiabank, as well as two other sponsors, and pledged to not submit their work or attend any related events until their demands are met.
Earlier this year, the Giller Prize parted ways with Scotiabank as a sponsor.
Last year’s Giller Prize winner was Anne Michaels for her novel Held.
Sarah Bernstein, who won the award in 2023 for Study for Obedience, signed the July 2024 letter calling for the prize to cut ties with Scotiabank. Omar El Akkad, who won the prize in 2021, also signed it.
Other past Giller Prize winners include Suzette Mayr for The Sleeping Car Porter, Esi Edugyan for Washington Black, Michael Redhill for Bellevue Square, Margaret Atwood for Alias Grace, Mordecai Richler for Barney’s Version, Alice Munro for Runaway, and Madeleine Thien for Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch founded the prize in honour of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller, in 1994. Rabinovitch died in 2017 at the age of 87.
You can learn more about the 14 longlisted books below.
Other Worlds by André Alexis
Spanning from 19th-century Trinidad and Tobago to a small town in Ontario, from Amherst, Mass., to modern-day Toronto, Other Worlds is a short story collection that highlights characters encountering moments of profound puzzlement.
Alexis was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and raised in Ottawa. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award (now known as the Amazon First Novel Award) and the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
His other books include Pastoral, Asylum, The Hidden Keys, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa and Days by Moonlight, which won the 2019 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and was on the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. His novel Fifteen Dogs, championed by Humble The Poet, won Canada Reads 2017 and the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad
A sequel and prequel to Bunny, Mona Awad’s debut novel, We Love You, Bunny takes readers back to the New England town and creative writing MFA that started it all. A few years later, Sam publishes her book about the violent and surreal experiences with the other cliquey girls in her program.
On her book tour, she stops at her alma mater and is kidnapped by her frenemies, who are upset with the way she portrayed them in her book. With Sam tied up in the fateful attic, the bunnies go back in time, recounting the story as they remember it.
Awad is a Boston-based author whose debut short story collection, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, won the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Colorado Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She is also the author of the novels Bunny, Rouge and All’s Well. Awad teaches at Syracuse University.
An Astonishment of Stars by Kirti Bhadresa
An Astonishment of Stars is a short story collection that focuses on racialized women navigating all the hardships of everyday life. From a wife who uses the name of her white husband in public to the teen girl who watches her rebellious older sister slip away, the stories shed light on those who often remain unseen.
Kirti Bhadresa is a Calgary-based fiction and nonfiction writer whose work has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, The Quarantine Review, The Sprawl and Room. She was a finalist for the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association Award in the feature writing category.
We, The Kindling by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek
We, the Kindling weaves together stories of women who were abducted as children by a rebel militia in northern Uganda. Through the writing, each powerful voice tells a haunting story of loss, survival, friendship and what it means to hold on to hope, no matter how small.
Bitek, a poet and scholar born in Kenya to Ugandan parents, currently lives in Kingston, Ont. Her work includes poetry collections 100 Days, A is for Acholi, which won the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and Song & Dread. She was also longlisted for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize.
The Tiger and the Cosmonaut by Eddy Boudel Tan
Having built a new life in Vancouver with his boyfriend, Casper Han rarely returns to his hometown, a small remote town in B.C. But when a crisis forces him and his siblings to reunite, they are compelled to confront a long-avoided tragedy — the mysterious disappearance of his twin brother more than 20 years ago. In The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, the siblings try to solve what happened to Sam in order to move forward.
Eddy Boudel Tan is a writer based in Vancouver, where he co-founded the Sidewalk Supper Project. His previous works include the novels After Elias and The Rebellious Tide.
Tan has been a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the ReLit Best Novel Award and the Ferro-Grumley Award and was named a Rising Star by Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2021. His work has appeared in Joyland and Yolk.
North by NorthwestEddy Boudel Tan on The Tiger and the Cosmonaut
Sugaring Off by Fanny Britt, translated by Susan Ouriou
Sugaring Off follows married couple Adam and Marion who seem to have it all figured out. When Adam causes a surfing accident that leaves a young woman injured, Adam and Marion must face the reality that they’ve been ignoring their problems.
Fanny Britt is a Montreal-based writer, translator and playwright. She has won multiple Governor General’s Literary Awards including the 2013 Award in Drama for her play Bienveillance. Sugaring Off won the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for French-language fiction.
Susan Ouriou is a French and Spanish to English translator, a fiction writer and a playwright. She has previously won the Governor General’s Literary Award for translation for her work. Ouriou also translated The Future by Catherine Leroux, which won Canada Reads 2024.
Still by Joanna Cockerline
In Still, Kayla lives and works on the streets of Kelowna, B.C. As she searches for her friend Little Zoe, a sex worker, who is missing, she revisits the haunting truths of her past. When Kayla befriends an outreach volunteer with her own struggles, they take photos together, realizing that everything is not always as it appears.
In a story of community, friendship and resilience, Still spotlights a vibrant and unhoused community and explores what it means to find home in others and oneself.
Joanna Cockerline is an author from Kelowna. She won second place in the CBC Short Story in 2002 and her work has been published in Room, The Fiddlehead and En Route.
She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022 and co-authored the short story collection Seeing Our Sisters with Munira Hussein, Rehema Zuberi, Hellen Mwololo, Ellah Hallets and Jacque Nzioka.
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
The Paris Express takes readers aboard a suspenseful train journey from the Normandy coast to Paris. Inspired by a real-life photo of a train hanging off the side of Montparnasse station, The Paris Express unravels over the course of one fateful day, featuring the fascinating stories of the passengers, from a young boy traveling solo to a pregnant woman on the run, the devoted railway workers and a young anarchist on a mission.
Emma Donoghue is an Irish Canadian writer whose books include the novels Landing, Room, Frog Music, The Wonder, The Pull of the Stars, Learned by Heart and the children’s book The Lotterys Plus One. Room was an international bestseller and was adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Brie Larson.
The Pull of the Stars was longlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and Canada Reads 2025 and shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award.
The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy
The Sideways Life of Denny Voss finds the titular character in rural Minnesota, living with his elderly mother and beloved dog and cleaning up roadkill to pay the bills. While his options for other work are limited due to a developmental delay, he’s always felt pretty content with the life he’s got.
When he’s charged with the murder of a mayoral candidate, Denny’s life is turned upside down as he tries to fight it. As he waits for the trial, the court-appointed therapist helps him retrace how he ended up here and uncovers painful truths about his family’s past.
Holly Kennedy is a writer based near the Rocky Mountains in Alberta. Her other books are The Tin Box, The Silver Compass, The Penny Tree and Route 66 On the Road.
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight
In The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, Pen is set for an eventful first-year university experience at the University of Edinburgh. In addition to her studies, she looks for answers about her parents’ messy divorce by writing a letter to her dad’s estranged best friend, thriller writer Lord Lennox.
When he invites her to spend a weekend at his family estate, she can’t help but become enthralled with his entire family — and slowly begins to unravel the family secrets that left her parents so pained.
Emma Knight is an author, journalist and entrepreneur based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Vogue, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus and The New York Times. She co-hosted and created the podcast Fanfare and co-founded the organic beverage company Greenhouse. She is the author of cookbooks How to Eat with One Hand and The Greenhouse Cookbook.
Wild Life by Amanda Leduc
In Wild Life, Josiah is banished to work as a missionary in Siberia to rid him of his belief that animals have a divine power. When a natural disaster kills the other missionaries there, Josiah is saved by two talking hyenas and brought home to Scotland safely.
He starts a religion based on the notion that God allowed these hyenas to speak because of his own fervent faith and as part of a plan to fix humanity. As he gains more followers, more animals begin to talk to humans and a mass exodus of captive animals causes everyone to reckon with their own wildness.
Amanda Leduc is the author of the novels The Miracles of Ordinary Men and The Centaur’s Wife, and the nonfiction book Disfigured, which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction. She was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2014 and 2019, as well as the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2014. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ont.
The Next ChapterAmanda Leduc on why she made her protagonists talking coyotes
The Road Between Us by Bindu Suresh
In The Road Between Us, Estela is a woman struggling in her personal and professional relationships due to the loss of a sibling at a young age. Estela is also dealing with the fallout from her estranged best friend, Ash, who confessed his love for her, and is figuring out his bisexual identity in the context of his traditional Indian family. Ophélie is coping with PTSD from an emotionally abusive relationship from her teens.
Roman is a teacher who seeks out his younger students in the wake of his divorce — and the height of the “Me Too” era. The Road Between Us is an episodic novel following those four characters that dives into how the choices we make affect those we love.
Bindu Suresh is a fiction writer and paediatrician based in Montreal. Her debut book was 26 Knots. She studied literature at Columbia University and medicine at McGill University. CBC Books named Suresh a writer to watch in 2019.
Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa
Pick A Colour tells the story of the day in the life of Ning, a retired boxer who works at a nail salon. Ning paints and polishes customers’ nails, falling into the routine and rhythms. But despite her anonymous exterior, she’s an intellectual, a deep thinker and is haunted by the roads not taken.
Thammavongsa wrote the short story collection How to Pronounce Knife, which won the Giller Prize and the Trillium Book Award. She’s also the author of four poetry collections and stand-alone stories that have been featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic and Granta. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and raised in Toronto.
You’ve Changed by Ian Williams
In You’ve Changed, middle-aged couple Beckett and Princess are having marital issues. They’re sent into parallel mid-life crises after their friends come to visit for the weekend. While Princess is concerned that their problems stem from her physical attributes and turns to surgery, Beckett decides to relaunch his contracting business in the hope that his accomplishments will revive their relationship.
They’re changing for each other but also discovering new things about themselves. Will their marriage survive?
Ian Williams is the author of several books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. His debut novel, Reproduction, won the Giller Prize. He gave the 2024 Massey Lecture on his nonfiction book What I Mean to Say. Williams is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and director of the creative writing program. He is based in Toronto.
IdeasThe 2024 CBC Massey Lectures | # 1: Why we need to have a conversation about conversations
