Two BC Authors Giller Longlisted
September 08th, 2026
Two Vancouver novelists are among the 14 Canadian writers in contention for the prestigious 2026 Giller Prize.
Chosen from more than 140 fiction submissions nationwide, the longlist recognizes debut novelist Patricia Finn for The Golden Boy (HarperCollins $24.99) and internationally bestselling author Nazanine Hozar for her second novel, The Small Ones (Knopf Canada $36).
For the first time in prize history, the selections were evaluated by a pan-Canadian jury composed exclusively of independent booksellers, including Sarah Klassen of Kelowna’s Mosaic Books.
Patricia Finn, an editor, ghostwriter and former television producer who completed post-graduate studies in Athenian tragedy, delivers an incisive study of public fallouts and moral reckoning in The Golden Boy. The novel follows Canadian-born television executive Stafford Hopkins, who retreats to a luxury Maui estate after losing his high-profile network job. A year into his self-imposed exile, an unexpected letter from the dead compels Stafford to confront his past, sending him home to an unresolved mystery involving the spirit of a young boy named Bobby Shepherd. 9781443476768
Born in Tehran and raised in Canada, Nazanine Hozar first received widespread critical acclaim for her bestselling debut Aria. In The Small Ones, Hozar returns with a harrowing, fable-like historical novel set during the Iran-Iraq War of the early 1980s. The narrative follows narrator Amir and his mythical companion Clay, leading a group of frontline child soldiers along the Karun river borderland as they create their own fragile kinship network while navigating lethal conflict, state coercion and the desperate yearning for home. 9780735280892
The 2026 Giller Prize shortlist will be unveiled on Monday, October 5, 2026. The ultimate winner of the $100,000 prize will be announced during a live ceremony in Toronto on Monday, November 16, 2026.
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