2025 Governor General’s Literary Award Finalists: BALDWIN, STYRON, AND ME and MAY OUR JOY ENDURE
We’re excited to share that this morning on Tuesday, October 21, two Biblioasis books were announced as finalists for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation: Catherine Khordoc’s translation of Baldwin, Styron, and Me by Mélikah Abdelmoumen and Donald Winkler’s translation of May Our Joy Endure by Kev Lambert!
View the full finalists announcement on the GG Books website here.
The Canada Council for the Arts funds, administers and actively promotes the Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGBooks) which celebrate literature and inspire people to read books by creators from Canada. The award provides finalists and winners with valuable recognition from peers and readers across the country. The monetary award for finalists is $1,000, and $25,000 for each winning book.
The winners of each category will be announced on Thursday, November 6.
Finalist for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award in Translation • Finalist for the 2025 John Glassco Translation Prize
In 1961, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write, in first person, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community.
Decades later, the controversy around cultural appropriation, identity, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin, Styron, and Me, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity, race, equity, and the often contentious public debates about these topics, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement.
Catherine Khordoc is a professor of French and Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa. She is the author of Tours et détours: Le mythe de Babel dans la littérature contemporaine (University of Ottawa Press, 2012). She also considers herself in many ways a frontier-dweller.
Grab a copy of Baldwin, Styron, and Me here!
Finalist for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award in Translation • A Walrus Best Book of Fall 2024 • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • Winner of the 2023 Prix Médicis, Prix Décembre, and Prix Ringuet
Céline Wachowski, internationally renowned architect and accidental digital-culture icon, unveils her plans for the Webuy Complex, her first megaproject in Montreal, her hometown. But instead of the triumph she anticipates in finally bringing her reputation to bear in her own city, the project is excoriated by critics, who accuse her of callously destroying the social fabric of neighborhoods, ushering in a new era of gentrification, and many even deadlier sins. When she is deposed as CEO of her firm, Céline must make sense of the charges against herself and the people in her elite circle. For the first time in danger of losing their footing, what fictions must they tell themselves to justify their privilege and maintain their position in the world that they themselves have built?
Moving fluidly between Céline’s perspective and the perspectives of her critics, and revealing both the ruthlessness of her methods and the brilliance of her aesthetic vision, May Our Joy Endure is a shrewd examination of the microcosm of the ultra-privileged and a dazzling social novel that depicts with razor-sharp acuity the terrible beauty of wealth, influence, and art.
Donald Winkler is a translator of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. He is a three-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-to-English translation. He lives in Montreal.
Grab a copy of May Our Joy Endure here!
