1999 Governor General's Award Nominees

Northwest Passages congratulates all the nominees for the 1999 Governor General's Literary Awards!

The following is a complete list of all the nominees, sorted by category, along with the respective jury's comments on each nominated book. Between now and November 17, when the winners are announced, all of these titles will be 15% off!

Fiction (English):

Neil Bissoondath, The Worlds Within Her
A compelling tale of memory, resilience and reconciliation. Bissoondath captures the spirit of newness by celebrating the old.

Matt Cohen, Elizabeth and After
Masterfully written and thoroughly engaging. Cohen captures elegantly the sentiments of rural life by populating it with the indomitable and universal.

Anne Fleming, Pool-hopping and Other Stories
Families fall away and come together, friends and lovers strive for connection, the gap between generations can widen and narrow within the space of a single page. Anne Fleming seems to know a great deal about need and the evasiveness of love.

Elyse Gasco, Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?
This beautifully crafted collection of stories explores the knots and bonds of motherhood, from pregnancy to adoption. Elyse Gasco's sensibility is utterly original and her stories shine with authenticity and wisdom.

Keith Maillard, Gloria
Keith Maillard's Gloria is a portrait of the artist as a young cheerleader. Gloria Merriman Cotter's journey from pampered co-ed to aspiring poet takes us through the vanities, shibboleths, prejudices, excesses and conformist dreams of the stifling fifties. Maillard has rendered and exposed this era with great intimacy and obsessive care.

Fiction (French)

Hugues Corriveau, Le Ramasseur de souffle
L'instant mme, ISBN 2-89502-122-8)
These stories are imbued with intelligent, sensitive creativity. A book where passions obey the law of excess and the jubilation of unbridled sensuality.

Jacques Marchand, for Les Vents dominants
Éditions de l'Hexagone, ISBN 2-89006-620-7
A rich, brilliantly written novel with a rare mastery of narrative, whose beauty, violence and obsession cast a spell on the reader.

Carole Massé, L'Ennemi
Éditions Les Herbes rouges, ISBN 2-89419-139-1
A woman and a mysterious enemy face off in a dreamlike, terrifying universe. Precise, subtle language enriches the implacable unfurling of the narrative.

Gaétan Soucy, La Petite Fille qui aimait trop les allumettes
Éditions du Boréal ISBN 2-89052-913-4
The death of a father seen through a child's eyes. In a sort of fable that tries to distance sorrow, the author has created a celebration of language that is both a tribute to literature and a recreation of the written word.

Lise Tremblay, La Danse juive
Leméac Éditeur, ISBN 2-7609-3217-6
Lise Tremblay's characters seem destined for irremediable solitude. These are inner exiles, viewed by the author with a freshness that is occasionally ironic and always clearsighted. A strong novel, whose great intensity is accentuated by its sober prose.

Poetry (English):

Lynn Davies, The Bridge that Carries the Road
In The Bridge that Carries the Road, Lynn Davies has crafted an inspired collection of poetry. Her imagery is original without straining to be so, and her poems resonate long after being read because of their wisdom and their music.

Susan Goyette, The True Names of Birds
Susan Goyette's gifted, resonating voice fills each poem as they explore with honesty and care parenthood, family and love in ways both startling and new. With her many long lines and lyrical power she manages to take us to the very heart of where we live and love.

Richard Harrison, Big Breath of a Wish
Richard Harrison captures with elegance, grace and candor the first year of his daughter's life. Through precise, tautly shaped poems we get to hear her voice develop from sound to syllable to sentence, experiencing along with her the very shaping of self.

Terence Young, The Island in Winter
The Island in Winter is a solid collection of poetry by Terence Young, whose subjects candidly explore family, fatherhood, and marriage, and are haunting with their honesty. The strong sense of narrative pulls the reader through several poems, and this same strength provides a satisfying union for the collection as a whole.

Jan Zwicky, Songs for Relinquishing the Earth
A compelling and versatile intelligence, along with exquisitely modulated rhythms of feeling, govern Jan Zwicky's Songs for Relinquishing the Earth. Grounding her elegant metaphysical and aesthetic insights in the physicality of the natural world and our own sensual natures, Zwicky shows that poetry is the best manifestation of philosophy.

Poetry (French)

Claude Beausoleil, Le Chant du voyageur
Éditions Les Herbes rouges ISBN 2-89419-146-4
In his latest collection, Claude Beausoleil dons the "arborescent mask of the poet", that "singular plural" being, the archetype who hears the "turbulence of others in himself."

Nicole Brossard, Musée de l'os et de l'eau
Éditions du Noroît/Cadex Éditions, ISBN 2-89018-358-0
Nicole Brossard makes words and concepts shine with intelligence as they connect with her vision of the world. She organizes a wholly visual structure as she observes and experiences moments of everyday life, leaving sparks of brilliance and delight in our memories.

Herménégilde Chiasson, Conversations
Éditions d'Acadie, ISBN 2-7600-0343-4
The voices of men and women travel like angels in the fibre optics of an underground stream of sorrow that binds them, "implacably recorded" by the poet. Writing that is extremely dense and - paradoxically - classical and highly modern.

Carole David, La Maison d'Ophélie
Éditions Les Herbes rouges, ISBN 2-89419-145-6
Carole David's La Maison d'Ophélie travels through several houses subverted by the play of reflections and resonance. Filled with a disturbing strangeness, a woman faced with her daily existence awaits, with faintly black humour, the terrible, final revelation.

Pierre Ouellet, Dieu sait quoi
Éditions du Noroît, ISBN 2-89018-409-9
With words and wordplay as his sole support, Pierre Ouellet dares to show how the denial of God is the ultimate invocation for the renewal of the ties binding the word and the world. In an ironic reprise of the biblical figure of Job, Dieu sait quoi plays for high stakes, filling the empty tomb with words awaiting what is infinitely mysterious and hidden.

Drama (English):

Michael Healey, The Drawer Boy
A profoundly moving piece that explores the power of memory, the need for love, and the ability of art itself to transform lives.

Wendy Lill, Corker
A mentally handicapped man is dropped through the social safety net only to end up on the doorstep of a maniacal cost-cutting bureaucrat. Lill has created a passionate, political and surprisingly funny play about our society's inability to care for the disadvantaged.

Daniel MacIvor, Marion Bridge
A beautifully crafted and honest play about three sisters whose lives collide unexpectedly upon their mother's death. MacIvor plumbs the moving and often funny contradictions of the human heart.

Colleen Murphy, Beating Heart Cadaver
Beautifully moving. Wondrously humorous. In an extraordinary examination of the sudden and tragic death of a child, Murphy has managed to express the inexpressible.

Theresa Tova, Still the Night
A tender, intimate, raw and stunningly rendered exploration by a daughter of her mother's remarkable struggle for survival as a young Jewish girl during the Second World War.

Drama (French):

Jean-Marc Dalpé Il n'y a que l'amour
Éditions Prise de parole ISBN 2-89423-095-8
The dense and polished language of Jean-Marc Dalpé gives speech to those who have none. With simple words and a powerful narrative, he breathes life into complex characters.

Carole Fréchette, Les Sept Jours de Simon Labrosse
Leméac Éditeur/Actes Sud-Papiers, ISBN 2-7427-2056-1
With humour and tenderness, Carole Fréchette invents a fable on the emptiness of our times and the emotional wandering that accompanies it.

René Gingras, D'Avila
Éditions Lansman, ISBN 2-87282-262-3
In rich language, René Gingras brings astonishing humanity to the character of Theresa of Avila without ever reducing her to her myth.

Michel Tremblay, Encore une fois, si vous permettez
Leméac Éditeur, ISBN 2-7609-0366-4
In Encore une fois, si vous permettez, Michel Tremblay comes full circle with the mythical mother who is at the basis of his work. With the immense theatrical strength of this tribute, Tremblay topples the real world into the world of theatre.

Non-fiction (English):

Donald Harman Akenson, Surpassing Wonder - The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds
McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN 0-7735-1781-2
Surpassing Wonder - The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds is a work of epic scope written in an engaging and approachable style. Professor Akenson convincingly marries two religious traditions that have been historically irreconcilable.

Michael Bliss, William Osler - A Life in Medicine
University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0-8020-4349-6
In William Osler - A Life in Medicine, Michael Bliss tells a story of compelling interest. He skilfully interweaves the personal life story with the development of medicine and the history of his times.

Wayson Choy, Paper Shadows - A Chinatown Childhood
Wayson Choy's Chinatown Childhood is a powerful yet unsentimental memoir that opens the door on one of Canada's richest immigrant experiences. At the same time, he demonstrates that ethnic origin notwithstanding, the child is truly the father of the man.

Marq de Villiers, Water
Stoddart Publishing, ISBN 0-7737-3163-6
A passionately written and broadly researched investigation on a subject of widespread importance. This important book on the world's looming water crisis is both readable and informative.

Wayne Johnston,Baltimore's Mansion - A Memoir
Baltimore's Mansion is a memoir of hypnotic power and purity of line. Like Newfoundland, the singular province it brings to life through the eyes of a native son, it will endure.

Non-fiction (French):

Anne Élaine Cliche, Dire le livre
XYZ Éditeur, ISBN 2-89261-193-8
Audacious research that is admirable for its openness and erudition. From the evangelical tradition and the torah through to Freudian psychoanalysis, this work conjures some of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century: Kafka, Beckett, Artaud, Genet and Lacan. The end result is a series of rare and marvellous encounters, virtual shock waves confirmed by Anne ƒlaine Cliche's refined prose.

Jean-Claude Dubé, Le Chevalier de Montmagny - Premier gouverneur de la Nouvelle-France
Éditions Fides, ISBN 2-7621-2073-X
Jean-Claude Dubé fills a gap in our knowledge in giving historians and history lovers this very thorough biography of Charles Huault de Montmagny, the first governor of New France. The author untangles the web of the administrator's origins in a limpid text that evokes and explores the influences Montmagny was subject to, his ties to the Jesuits and the Order of Malta and his role in the settlement and growth of the colony.

François-Marc Gagnon, Chronique du mouvement automatiste québécois 1941-1954
Lanctôt Éditeur, ISBN 2-89485-057-3
The fruit of exhaustive research on all the various aspects of automatism, this dense work is a definitive document on the movement as well as the individual evolution of each of its members. Behind every detail we sense the penetrating, occasionally ironic and always objective gaze of the author.

Daniel Jacques, Nationalité et Modernité
Éditions du Boréal, ISBN 2-89052-935-5
A systematic reflection on the history of the idea of nationhood since the 18th century, this careful, lucid work invites us to rethink the relationship between universality and diversity. Bringing into play a remarkable array of ideas that are essential to our times, including globalization and individualism, Daniel Jacques urges contemporary society to restore meaning to the structures of solidarity and national affiliation.

Pierre Perrault, Le Mal du Nord
Éditions Vents d'Ouest ISBN 2-921603-90-X
A passionate, poetic voyage toward a beloved place, people and woman. This book, which brings together the qualities of autobiography, documentary and essay, is also a reflection on values that withstand death and the passage of time.

Translation (French to English):

Patricia Claxton, Gabrielle Roy: A Life
English version of Gabrielle Roy, Une Vie, by François Ricard (Éditions du Boréal)
Patricia Claxton has not only fully rendered a serious scholarly work but has produced an eminently readable biography of a major Canadian author.

David Homel, Olivo Oliva
English version of Olivo Oliva, by Philippe Poloni (Lanct™t ƒditeur)
To the stylistic bravado of the original, David Homel succeeds in providing an elegant and uncluttered translation, without losing the author's exuberant playfulness.

Nancy Huston, The Mark of the Angel
English version of L'Empreinte de l'ange, by Nancy Huston (Leméac Éditeur/Actes Sud)
Nancy Huston has produced an inspiring and inspired translation that is faithful to the original without being slavish or literal. The English version retains the distinctive narrative voice and brings Paris in the 60s to life.

Lazer Lederhendler, The Sparrow has Cut the Day in Half
English version of Bonheur, oiseau rare, by Claire Dé (XYZ Éditeur) Lazer Lederhendler not only strictly adheres to the haiku form of this novel in verse, but ingeniously renders the sprightly, wistful yet sardonic tone of this love story.

Donald Winkler, The World of the Gift
McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN 0-7735-1751-0)
English version of L'Esprit du don, by Jacques T. Godbout in collaboration with Alain Caillé (Éditions du Boréal/Éditions La Découverte)
Donald Winkler has met the difficult challenge of translating an academic treatise while remaining accessible to lay readers. He masters the scientific terminology and achieves a fluid, readable style.

Translation (English to French):

Jacques Brault, Transfiguration (Éditions du Noro”t/Buschek Books, ISBN 2-89018-418-8)
French version of Transfiguration by E.D. Blodgett and Jacques Brault (ƒditions du Noro”t/BuscheckBooks)
Poetry is always a challenge for translators. Jacques Brault translates with such elegance and sensitivity that one could readily believe Blodgett's poems had been written in French.

Charlotte Melançon, Réflexions d'un frère siamois - Le Canada à l'aube du XXIe siècle
French version of Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century by John Ralston Saul (Penguin Books)
Charlotte Melançon has seamlessly rendered the meditations of this major English-Canadian essayist. She is attentive and faithful to every nuance of the original text, and carefully avoids the inherent pitfalls of translation.

Marie José Thériault, Ours
Calmann-Lévy, ISBN 2-7021-2992-7)
French version of Bear by Marian Engel
This translation, which manages to be both faithful and daring, attests to an enormous sensitivity to the work of Marian Engel. The rightness of her tone and richness of her vocabulary reproduce the troubling atmosphere of the novel and the subtle evolution of the main character.

Children's literature - text (English)

Don Gillmor, The Christmas Orange
Stoddart Publishing, ISBN 0-7737-3100-8
The Christmas Orange is a delightful, contemporary Christmas cracker, veritably popping and sizzling with wit. It is a fable for our times; crisply told and hilariously relevant.

Rachna Gilmore, A Screaming Kind of Day
Fitzhenry & Whiteside, ISBN 1-55041-514-X
A Screaming Kind of Day adroitly captures the essence of Scully, as she experiences the ups and downs of a rainy day at home. What Scully hears depends upon whether she chooses to wear her hearing aid. Rachna Gilmore masterfully produces a character and story which speak eloquently of the uniqueness of all children.

Graham McNamee, Hate You Delacorte Press/Random House, ISBN 0-385-32593-2
An intense, challenging novel of a young woman who feels robbed of her trust and her voice. Seventeen-year old Alice's anger burns as ferociously as the bitter songs inside her, until the resurfacing and confrontation with her personal demon lead her to recognize the value and power of the voice she has. Hate You is a compelling and uncompromising debut of an exciting new writer.

W.D. Valgardson, The Divorced Kids Club and Other Stories
Groundwood Books/Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN 0-88899-369-2 - bound; ISBN 0-88899-370-6 - paperback)
Valgardson's seven short stories capture the lives of teenagers forced to adjust to changing circumstances in the turbulent nineties. Economical, lyrical and honest, his prose draws vivid characters who remain after the story is told.

Frieda Wishinsky, Each One Special
Orca Book Publishers, ISBN 1-55143-122-X
Ben visits Harry the cake decorator every day after school and sometimes Harry lets him help. Each One Special is a joyful call to the creator in every child.

Children's literature - text (French)

Agathe Génois, Adieu, vieux lézard!
Dominique et compagnie, a division of Éditions Héritage, ISBN 2-89512-024-2
"Old Lizard" is the nickname of the sour-tempered grandmother of the story. In the heart of the old lady, however, lives a forgotten little girl. This lovely story looks at old age in a humorous and tender light, from an original point of view.

Charlotte Gingras, La Liberté? Connais pas...
Éditions de la courte échelle, ISBN 2-89021-343-9
Mirabelle is a 15-year-old girl with a fruit for a name and hundreds of unanswered questions in her heart. Charlotte Gingras has written a novel that is powerful and thought-provoking, occasionally harsh but always poetic, carving emotions with the precision of a scalpel.

Andrée-Anne Gratton, Le Message du biscuit chinois
Éditions du Boréal, ISBN 2-89052-918-5
What child hasn't dreamt - at least once - of changing his parents? This question is the premise for an outrageous adventure full of unexpected turns that leads Hugo to discover his parents.

Sylvie Nicolas, Célestine Motamo
Dominique et compagnie, a division of Éditions Héritage, ISBN 2-89512-020-X
This delicious story should be savoured like the carrot cake concocted by Célestine Motamo, a sweet old lady aged 72. The style is light, the words dance and the emotions are tender and true.

Raymond Plante, Marilou Polaire et l'iguane des neiges
Éditions de la courte échelle, ISBN 2-89021-336-6
While in search of the snow iguana, Marilou Polaire discovers friendship. This touching story, both fanciful and perceptive, is in the best tradition of Christmas tales, filled with love of live and the joy of new beginnings.