The Governor General’s Literary Awards announced its 2013 finalists this morning,

Mega-publisher Penguin Random House Canada has swept the fiction-category nominations, including a nod for first-time novelist Kenneth Bonert, whose book, The Lion Seeker, was published under Random House of Canada’s New Face of Fiction series. In the non-fiction category, Priscila Uppal received another nod for her memoir, Projection, nominated last week for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-fiction.

Determined by peer juries, the winners, each of whom receives $25,000, will be announced Nov. 13 at the Betty Oliphant Theatre in Toronto. The awards will be presented on Nov. 28 at a ceremony in Ottawa.*

The complete English-language shortlists, which include drama, non-fiction, children’s books, and translation, are as follows:

Fiction

• Kenneth Bonert, The Lion Seeker (Knopf Canada)
• Joseph Boyden, The Orenda (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (McClelland & Stewart)
• Colin McAdam, A Beautiful Truth (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Shyam Selvadurai, The Hungry Ghosts (Doubleday Canada)

Poetry

• Austin Clarke, Where The Sun Shines Best (Guernica Editions)
• Adam Dickinson, The Polymers (House of Anansi Press)
• Don Domanski, Bite Down Little Whisper (Brick Books)
• Russell Thornton, Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain (Harbour Publishing)
• Katherena Vermette, North End Love Songs (The Muses’ Company)

Drama

• Nicolas Billon, Fault Lines (Coach House Books)
• Meg Braem, Blood: A Scientific Romance (Playwrights Canada Press)
• Kate Hewlett, The Swearing Jar (Scirocco Drama)
• Lawrence Jeffery, Frenchtown (Exile Editions)
• Joseph Jomo Pierre, Shakespeare’s Nigga (Playwrights Canada Press)

Non-fiction

• Carolyn Abraham, The Juggler’s Children: A Journey into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us (Random House Canada)
• Sandra Djwa, Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
• Nina Munk, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty (Signal)
• Allen Smutylo, The Memory of Water (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
• Priscila Uppal, Projection (Dundurn Press)

Children’s Literature: Text

• Beverley Brenna, The White Bicycle (Red Deer Press)
• Shane Peacock, Becoming Holmes: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His Final Case (Tundra Books)
• Jean E. Pendziwol, Once Upon a Northern Night (Groundwood Books)
• Valerie Sherrard, Counting Back From Nine (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)
• Teresa Toten, The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B (Doubleday Canada)

Children’s Literature: Illustration

• Rachel Berman, Miss Mousie’s Blind Date; text by Tim Beiser (Tundra Books)
• Gary Clement, Oy, Feh, So?; text by Cary Fagan (Groundwood)
• Matt James, Northwest Passage; text by Stan Rogers (Groundwood)
• Jon Klassen, The Dark; text by Lemony Snicket (HarperCollins)
• Julie Morstad, How To; text by Julie Morstad (Simply Read Books)

Translation: French to English

• Robert Majzels, For Sure (Anansi); English translation of Pour sûr by France Daigle
• Rhonda Mullins, And the Birds Rained Down (Coach House); English translation of Il pleuvait des oiseaux by Jocelyne Saucier
• George Tombs, Canada’s Forgotten Slaves: Two Hundred Years of Bondage (Véhicule Press); English translation of Deux siècles d’esclavage au Québec by Marcel Trudel
• Luise von Flotow, The Stalinist’s Wife (Guernica); English translation of La femme du stalinien by France Théoret
• Donald Winkler, The Major Verbs (Signal Editions); English translation of Les verbes majeurs by Pierre Nepveu
• Joseph Yvon Thériault, Évangéline: Contes d’Amérique (Éditions Québec Amérique)