OTTAWA, Sept. 17, 2025 — The City of Ottawa has announced the finalists for the 2025 Ottawa Book Awards. This year’s compelling and diverse literary works explore the human condition and how it is shaped by life’s events – from familial ties and historical narratives to the exploration of one’s identity and societal changes.
These annual awards recognize the finest English and French books released in the previous year, authored by 14 local writers, who exemplify Ottawa’s rich literary talent. And without further ado, here is this year’s list of finalists.
2025 Ottawa Book Awards finalists:
English Fiction
- Manahil Bandukwala, Heliotropia (Brick Books)
- Nina Berkhout, This Bright Dust (Goose Lane Editions)
- Paul Carlucci, The Voyageur (Swift Press)
- rob mclennan, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press)
- Chuqiao Yang, The Last to the Party (Goose Lane Editions)
English Non-fiction
- Denise Chong, Out of Darkness: Rumana Monzur’s journey through betrayal, tyranny and abuse (Penguin Random House Canada)
- Tim Cook, The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War (Penguin Random House Canada)
- Katherine Leyton, Motherlike (Second Story Press)
- Misty Pratt, All In Her Head: How Gender Bias Harms Women’s Mental Health (Greystone Books)
- Ian Smillie, Under Development: A journey without maps (Practical Action Publishing)
Prix du livre d’Ottawa
- Margaret Michèle Cook, La lumière de minuit (Éditions Malaïka)
- Emmanuelle Erny, Charlotte au pays des mots (Les Éditions L’Interligne)
- Monia Mazigh, Histoires de racines (Les Éditions David)
- Claire Ménard-Roussy, Un lourd prix à payer (Les Éditions David)
Descriptions of short-listed books, cover images and author biographies are available on the Ottawa Book Awards webpage.
English fiction category
Awarded for outstanding published works of fiction including novels, short stories, children’s literature and poetry.
Heliotropia
by Manahil Bandukwala
Brick Books
Manahil Bandukwala’s second collection of poems is a meditation on love during times of social and political upheaval. As a sunflower’s growth reaches toward the sun, so, she suggests, is a lover’s growth compelled by the gravitational pull and soul-light of their beloved.
Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist based in Mississauga, Ontario. She is the author of MONUMENT (Brick Books 2022) and a number of chapbooks, including Sprawl | the time it took us to forget (Collusion Books 2020), which was shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award.
This Bright Dust
by Nina Berkhout
Goose Lane Editions
This Bright Dust takes readers to the Canadian Prairies at the tail end of the Great Depression. As disillusionment with the crown rises and crops falter, neighbours and friends are at odds over whether they should welcome a Royal Tour as a sign of a coming spring, or to protest a government that seems to have left Western Canadians behind.
Nina Berkhout is the author of three previous novels. Her books have been on Indigo, Kobo and Audible best book lists, and This Bright Dust was named a 49th Shelf Book of the Year and a Winnipeg Free Press top fiction title. Her poems have also been featured in publications across Canada, including the Best Canadian Poetry anthology. She grew up in Calgary, and has called Ottawa home for close to twenty years.
The Voyageur
by Paul Carlucci
Swift Press
Loosely based on the real life of fur trader Alexis St Martin, The Voyageur is a critically acclaimed novel about the difficulties of finding agency in troubled times.
Paul Carlucci is the author of The Voyageur, The High-Rise in Fort Fierce, A Plea for Constant Motion, and The Secret Life of Fission. He won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and has been shortlisted for an Ottawa Book Award and two ReLit Awards. A former journalist, he’s now a freelance editor working with traditional presses, self-publishing authors, aspiring writers, research professionals, and small businesses.
On Beauty
by rob mclennan
University of Alberta Press
On Beauty is a provocative collection of vignettes revolving around the small chasms and large craters of everyday life.
rob mclennan is the author of more than 30 books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. mclennan posts reviews, essays, and interviews at robmclennan.blogspot.com.
The Last to the Party
by Chuqiao Yang
Goose Lane Editions
Chuqiao Yang’s irreverent, fierce, and ceaselessly surprising poems journey restlessly through recollections of a Saskatchewan childhood. The child of Chinese immigrants, Yang writes about her complicated journey with identity, culture clash, travel, and family. This is a deeply moving debut collection that explores family, culture, and diaspora with breathtaking and brutal honesty.
Chuqiao Yang’s poems have appeared in The Unpublished City, Ricepaper, Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, Prism, Grain, CV2, Room, and on CBC Radio. She was a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and her chapbook, Reunions in the Year of the Sheep, won the bpNichol Chapbook Award.
English non-fiction category
Awarded for outstanding published works of non-fiction including biographies, memoirs, cultural histories, literary journalism and essays.
Out of Darkness: Rumana Monzur’s Journey through Betrayal, Tyranny and Abuse
by Denise Chong
Random House Canada
From the bestselling author of The Concubine’s Children and The Girl in the Picture, a gripping story of a domestic assault that shocked the world, of the exercise of power and political influence, and of the Bangladeshi woman whose irrepressible spirit found light in sudden darkness.
Denise Chong is an award-winning author whose work portrays the lives of ordinary people caught in the eye of history. Best known for The Concubine’s Children; The Girl in the Picture; and Egg on Mao, she lives in Ottawa.
The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War
by Tim Cook
Random House Canada
From our country’s most important war historian, a gripping account of the turbulent relationship between Canada and the US during the Second World War. The two nations entered the war amidst rivalry and mutual suspicion, but learned to fight together before emerging triumphant and bound by an alliance that has lasted to this day.
Tim Cook is Chief Historian and Director of Research at the Canadian War Museum. His bestselling books have won multiple awards, including four Ottawa Book Awards and two C.P. Stacey Awards. Cook is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and the Order of Canada.
Motherlike
by Katherine Leyton
Second Story Press
In this candid, entertaining, and poignant account of new motherhood, Leyton weaves her own observations with historical research and cultural commentary on everything from the history of the birth control pill to the risks of labour and the realities of being post-partum. A personal story that reflects a larger picture of ourselves.
Katherine Leyton is a poet, screenwriter and nonfiction writer from Toronto. Her first book of poems, All the Gold Hurts My Mouth, was the winner of the ReLit Award. Her work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Hazlitt and Bitch. She lives in Ottawa.
All In Her Head: How Gender Bias Harms Women’s Mental Health
by Misty Pratt
Greystone Books
In All In Her Head, Misty Pratt embarks on a crucial investigation, painting a picture of a system that is failing women on multiple levels. Pratt shares her own history of mental illness and explores the stereotypes that have shaped how we understand and treat women’s distress, providing women with hope and courage to reframe and reclaim their mental health.
Misty Pratt is a medical researcher who has written for publications including Broadview, Mindful.org, and Today’s Parent. All in Her Head is her first book. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
Under Development: A journey Without Maps
by Ian Smillie
Practical Action Publishing
Smillie’s story moves from Africa and blood diamonds to Asia, war-torn Bosnia, the Khyber Pass and a just-before-9/11 meeting at CIA headquarters. This is an insightful, sometimes hilarious memoir about development: personal development, the development of ideas and understanding, rights and justice, war and peace, poverty and survival. It’s about the drive to end global poverty and why it’s failing.
Past CEO of CUSO and Inter Pares, a leader in the blood diamond campaign, Member of the Order of Canada, Ian Smillie has lived and worked extensively in Africa and Asia and authored several books, including The Alms Bazaar, The Charity of Nations, Freedom from Want and Blood on the Stone.
Prix du livre d’Ottawa
La lumière de minuit
By Margaret Michèle Cook
Éditions Malaïka
La Lumière de minuit [The Light of Midnight], a modern elegy that begins with death and shows the consoling role of creation and art, as well as powerful moments of emotion during the slow process of detachment in the face of grief. Prose poetry, in a diaphanous, dreamlike narrative. Suffering, inevitable heartbreak, and a more fundamental, existential revolt rumble in the background.
Poet Laureate of the City of Ottawa between 2019 and 2021, Margaret M Cook has published eight books of poetry and participated in numerous collective projects. Chronos à sa table de travail [Chronos at His Worktable] won the Ottawa Book Awards.
Charlotte au pays des mots
by Emmanuelle Erny
Les Éditions L’Interligne
Like Alice down the rabbit hole, Charlotte falls into her grammar book and finds herself in the middle of a world populated by words. In her quest to escape, Charlotte plunges into the intricacies of her own language, and rediscovers for herself that we express words as much as they express us.
Emmanuelle Erny is a storyteller and educator. Her life has taken her from France to Scotland and from Scotland to Ontario. She has built her nest in the heart of the nation’s capital, around which she loves to cycle, run and wander.
Histoires de racines
by Monia Mazigh
Les Éditions David
In the style of a primer, Histoires de racines [Tales of Roots] invites us to explore a universe of human experiences, a collection of powerful reflections on places and inspirations. For each letter, a word creates a story where the “other” is none other than ourselves. The author tackles the highly topical issues of migration and population displacement.
Monia Mazigh is a Canadian academic and author. She writes in French and English, and to date is the author of a memoir, an essay, three critically acclaimed novels and a collection of short stories. Monia Mazigh has been a columnist for ONFr+ and Radio-Canada.
Un lourd prix à payer
by Claire Ménard-Roussy
Les Éditions David
A Dutch family settles in Eastern Ontario after the Second World War. A few years later, their teenage daughter disappears without a word, and her father is accused of drowning her. A botched police investigation and lies lead to a tragedy whose price will be paid by many for years to come.
Claire Ménard-Roussy grew up in Ontario, in the township of Glengarry. She taught in Sturgeon Falls, then in Ottawa. Her first novel was published in 2019 by Prise de parole in Sudbury. She has lived in Ottawa since 1990.
The books of this year’s nominees, as well as those of past years are available at Ottawa Public Library (OPL)(link is external). An OPL membership card is free for everyone who lives in Ottawa.
Winners will be announced on Saturday, November 15 at 7 pm at an event hosted by the Ottawa Public Library at Meridian Theatres @ Centrepointe. Each winner will receive $7,500, while finalists will each receive $1,000.
Past winners of the Ottawa Book Awards include Huda Mukbil, Sandra Ridley, Jean Van Loon, Conyer Clayton, Kagiso Lesego Molope, Suzanne Evans, Henry Beissel, John Metcalf and Charlotte Gray.
Previous winners of the Prix du livre include Sébastien Pierroz, Andrée Christensen, Véronique Sylvain, Blaise Ndala, Pierre-Luc Landry, Alain Bernard Marchand and Nicole V. Champeau.
SOURCE City of Ottawa
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