Challenging the Challenge

Noticing that the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is entirely American, and that I am not, I decided to challenge the challenge by also reading a Governor General Literary Prize winning book from each decade. I won’t read one for the 1920s because the award was first given out in 1936. Below is the list I will choose from. Once again, please give me any recommendations from any decade, and also any recommendations on Pulitzer books too.

The beauty is that I could one day be eligible for this one. The beauty is also that I can compare decades in America and Canada. The beauty is also Canada itself.

1930s

• 1936: Bertram Brooker, Think of the Earth
• 1937: Laura Salverson, The Dark Weaver
• 1938: Gwethalyn Graham, Swiss Sonata
• 1939: Franklin D. McDowell, The Champlain Road

1940s

• 1940: Ringuet, Thirty Acres
• 1941: Alan Sullivan, Three Came to Ville Marie
• 1942: G. Herbert Sallans, Little Man
• 1943: Thomas H. Raddall, The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek
• 1944: Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven
• 1945: Hugh MacLennan, Two Solitudes
• 1946: Winifred Bambrick, Continental Revue
• 1947: Gabrielle Roy, The Tin Flute
• 1948: Hugh MacLennan, The Precipice
• 1949: Philip Child, Mr. Ames Against Time

1950s

• 1950: Germaine Guèvremont, The Outlander
• 1951: Morley Callaghan, The Loved and the Lost
• 1952: David Walker, The Pillar
• 1953: David Walker, Digby
• 1954: Igor Gouzenko, The Fall of a Titan
• 1955: Lionel Shapiro, The Sixth of June
• 1956: Adele Wiseman, The Sacrifice
• 1957: Gabrielle Roy, Street of Riches
• 1958: Colin McDougall, Execution
• 1959: Hugh MacLennan, The Watch That Ends the Night

1960s

• 1960: Brian Moore, The Luck of Ginger Coffey
• 1961: Malcolm Lowry, Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place
• 1962: Kildare Dobbs, Running to Paradise
• 1963: Hugh Garner, Hugh Garner’s Best Stories
• 1964: Douglas LePan, The Deserter
• 1965: (none)
• 1966: Margaret Laurence, A Jest of God
• 1967: (none)
• 1968: Alice Munro, Dance of the Happy Shades
• 1969: Robert Kroetsch, The Studhorse Man

1970s

• 1970: Dave Godfrey, The New Ancestors
• 1971: Mordecai Richler, St. Urbain’s Horseman
• 1972: Robertson Davies, The Manticore
• 1973: Rudy Wiebe, The Temptations of Big Bear
• 1974: Margaret Laurence, The Diviners
• 1975: Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection
• 1976: Marian Engel, Bear
• 1977: Timothy Findley, The Wars
• 1978: Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are?
• 1979: Jack Hodgins, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne

1980s

• 1980: George Bowering, Burning Water
• 1981: Mavis Gallant, Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories
• 1982: Guy Vanderhaeghe, Man Descending
• 1983: Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
• 1984: Josef Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls
• 1985: Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
• 1986: Alice Munro, The Progress of Love
• 1987: M.T. Kelly, A Dream Like Mine
• 1988: David Adams Richards, Nights Below Station Street
• 1989: Paul Quarrington, Whale Music

1990s

• 1990: Nino Ricci, Lives of the Saints
• 1991: Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey
• 1992: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
• 1993: Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries
• 1994: Rudy Wiebe, A Discovery of Strangers
• 1995: Greg Hollingshead, The Roaring Girl
• 1996: Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Englishman’s Boy
• 1997: Jane Urquhart, The Underpainter
• 1998: Diane Schoemperlen, Forms of Devotion
• 1999: Matt Cohen, Elizabeth and After

2000s

• 2000: Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost
• 2001: Richard B. Wright, Clara Callan
• 2002: Gloria Sawai, A Song for Nettie Johnson
• 2003: Douglas Glover, Elle
• 2004: Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness
• 2005: David Gilmour, A Perfect Night to Go to China
• 2006: Peter Behrens, The Law of Dreams
• 2007: Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero
• 2008: Nino Ricci, The Origin of Species
• 2009: Kate Pullinger, The Mistress of Nothing

2010s

• 2010: Dianne Warren, Cool Water
• 2011: Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

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