Amazon.ca First Novel Award

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Awarded annually for a first novel in English published in the previous year by a Canadian. Formerly known as the Books in Canada First Novel Award.

indicates a review is available for that book

2013

  • Wayne Grady – Emancipation Day

Also shortlisted:

  • Kenneth Bonert – The Lion Seeker
  • Krista Bridge – The Eliot Girls
  • Susan Downe – Juanita Wildrose
  • D.W. Wilson – Ballistics

2012

  • Anakana Schofield – Malarky

Also shortlisted:

  • Marjorie Celona – Y
  • Scott Fotheringham – The Rest is Silence
  • Pasha Malla – People Park
  • Kim Thúy – Ru

2011

Also shortlisted:

  • Fraser Nixon – The Man Who Killed
  • Sina Queyras – Autobiography of Childhood
  • Olive Senior – Dancing Lessons
  • Alexi Zentner – Touch

2010

  • Eleanor Catton – The Rehearsal

Also shortlisted:

  • Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall – Ghosted
  • Miguel Syjuco – Ilustrado
  • Kathleen Winter – Annabel
  • Dianne Warren – Cool Water

2009

  • Jessica Grant – Come, Thou Tortoise

Also shortlisted:

  • Diana Fitzgerald Bryden – No Place Strange
  • Annabel Lyon – The Golden Mean
  • Damian Tarnopolsky – Goya's Dog
  • Dragan Todorovic – Diary of Interrupted Days
  • Ian Weir – Daniel O'Thunder

2008

Also shortlisted:

  • Mike Blouin – Chase and Haven
  • Claudia Dey – Stunt
  • Mary Swan – The Boys in the Trees
  • Patrick Lane – Red Dog, Red Dog
  • Padma Viswanathan – The Toss of a Lemon

2007

Also shortlisted:

2006

Also shortlisted:

2005

Also shortlisted:

2004

  • Colin MacAdam – Some Great Thing

Also shortlisted:

  • David Elias – Sunday Afternoon
  • Ibi Kaslik – Skinny
  • Arthur Motyer – What's Remembered
  • Catherine Safer – Bishop's Road

2003

  • Michel Basilières – Black Bird

Also shortlisted:

  • Clayton Bailey – The Expedition
  • John Bemrose – The Island Walkers
  • Lisa Grekul – Kalyna's Song
  • Bettina von Kampen – Blue Becomes You
  • Edeet Ravel – Ten Thousand Lovers

2002

Also shortlisted:

  • Christy Ann Conlin – Heave
  • Aislinn Hunter – Stay
  • Clint Hutzulak – The Beautiful Dead End
  • Michael V. Smith – Cumberland
  • Marnie Woodrow – Spelling Mississippi

2001

Also shortlisted:

  • Dennis Bock – The Ash Garden
  • Michael Crummey – River Thieves
  • Marina Endicott – Open Arms
  • Linda Little – Strong Hollow
  • Elizabeth Ruth – Ten Good Seconds of Silence

2000

  • Eva Stachniak – Necessary Lies

Also shortlisted:

1999

Also shortlisted:

  • Alistair MacLeod – No Great Mischief
  • Donna Morrissey – Kit's Law
  • Jim Munroe – Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask
  • Catherine Simmons-Niven – A Fine Daughter

1998

Also shortlisted:

  • Loranne Brown – The Handless Maiden
  • Tomson Highway – Kiss of the Fur Queen
  • Terry Jordan – Beneath That Starry Place
  • Kerri Sakamoto – The Electrical Field

1997

  • Margaret Gibson – Opium Dreams

Also shortlisted:

  • Kim Echlin – Elephant Winter
  • Allan Levine – The Blood Libel
  • Rabindranath Maharaj – Homer in Flight
  • Tim Wynveen – Angel Falls

1996

Also shortlisted:

1995

  • Keath Fraser – Popular Anatomy

Also shortlisted:

  • Diana Atkinson – Highways and Dancehalls
  • Wayson Choy – The Jade Peony
  • Larissa Lai – When Fox Is a Thousand
  • Yan Li – Daughters of the Red Land

1994

Also shortlisted:

1993

  • Deborah Joy Corey – Losing Eddie

Also shortlisted:

  • Catherine Bush – Minus Time
  • Don Dickinson – The Crew
  • Douglas How – Blow Up the Trumpet in the New Moon
  • Carol Malyon – If I Knew I'd Tell You

1992

  • John Steffler – The Afterlife of George Cartwright

Also shortlisted:

  • Douglas Cooper – Amnesia
  • Carole Corbeil – Voice-over
  • Kenneth J. Harvey – Brud
  • Greg Hollingshead – Spin Dry

1991

Also shortlisted:

  • Douglas Coupland – Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
  • Ekbert Faas – Woyzeck's Head
  • Michael Kenyon – Kleinberg
  • Alberto Manguel – News from a Foreign Country Came

1990

Also shortlisted:

  • Gail Bowen – Deadly Appearances
  • Rita Donovan – The Dark Jewels
  • Glen Huser – Grace Lake
  • Margot Livesey – Homework
  • Carsten Stroud – Sniper's Moon

1989

Also shortlisted:

  • Marilyn Bowering – To All Appearances a Lady
  • Barry Callaghan – The Way the Angel Spread Her Wings
  • Jacqueline Dumas – Madeleine and the Angel
  • Kristjana Gunnars – The Prowler
  • Kenneth Radu – Distant Relations

1988

  • Rick Salutin – A Man of Little Faith

Also shortlisted:

  • Neil Bissoondath – A Casual Brutality
  • Joan Clark – The Victory of Geraldine Gull
  • David Homel – Electrical Storms
  • Janice Kulyk Keefer – Constellations
  • Helen Fogwill Porter – January, February, June or July

1987

  • Marion Quednau – The Butterfly Chair

Also shortlisted:

  • D.F. Bailey – Fire Eyes
  • W.D. Barcus – Squatters' Island
  • Pauline Holdstock – The Blackbird's Song
  • Seán Virgo – Selakhi

1986

  • Karen Lawrence – The Life of Helen Alone

Also shortlisted:

  • Jo Anne Williams Bennett – Downfall People
  • Marc Diamond – Momentum
  • David Gilmour – Back on Tuesday
  • Paulette Jiles – The Late Great Human Road Show

1985

Also shortlisted:

  • Susan Charlotte Haley – A Nest of Singing Birds
  • Ann Ireland – A Certain Mr. Takahashi
  • Frank Jones – Master and Maid
  • Robert Walshe – Wales' Work

1984

  • Geoffrey Ursell – Perdue: Or How the West Was Lost

Also shortlisted:

  • Sharon Butala – Country of the Heart
  • Douglas Glover – Precious
  • John Gray – Dazzled
  • Sara Stambaugh – I Hear the Reaper's Song
  • Armin Wiebe – The Salvation of Yasch Siemens

1983

  • Heather Robertson – Willie: A Romance

Also shortlisted:

  • Robert G. Collins – Tolerable Levels of Violence
  • Susan Swan – The Biggest Modern Woman in the World
  • George Szanto – Not Working
  • Wayne Tefs – Figures on a Wharf

1982

Also shortlisted:

  • Lorris Elliott – Coming for to Carry
  • Nessa Rapoport – Preparing for Sabbath
  • Geraldine Rahmani – Blue
  • Ann Rosenberg – The Bee Book

1981

Also shortlisted:

  • Jim Christy – Streethearts
  • George Jonas – Final Decree
  • Edward Phillips – Sunday's Child
  • Gary Ross – Always Tip the Dealer

1980

Also shortlisted:

  • Martyn Burke – Laughing War
  • Susan Musgrave – The Charcoal Burners
  • Graham Petrie – Seahorse
  • Leon Rooke – Fat Woman

1979

  • Clark Blaise – Lunar Attractions

Also shortlisted:

  • Victoria Branden – Mrs. Job
  • Stan Dragland – Peckertracks
  • Florence Evans – A Man Without Passion
  • Shirley Faessler – Everything in the Window
  • Katherine Govier – Random Descent
  • Betty Lambert – Crossings

1978

Also shortlisted:

  • Michael Dorland – The Double-Cross Circuit
  • Clive Doucet – Disneyland, Please
  • Margaret Drury Gane – Parade on an Empty Street
  • Kevin Major – Hold Fast
  • Frank Paci – The Italians

1977

  • Oonah McFee – Sandbars

Also shortlisted:

  • Shane Dennison – Sidehill Gouger
  • Pauline Gedge – Child of the Morning
  • Jack Hodgins – The Invention of the World
  • M.T. Kelly – I Do Remember the Fall
  • Helen Levi – A Small Informal Dance
  • Morley Torgov – The Abramsky Variations

1976

  • Ian McLachlan – The Seventh Hexagram
  • Michael Ondaatje – Coming Through Slaughter

Also shortlisted:

  • Alice Boissoneau – Eileen McCullough
  • David Kellum – The Falling World of Tristram Pocket
  • Susan Kerslake – Middlewatch
  • Sharon Riis – The True Story of Ida Johnson
  • Carol Shields – Small Ceremonies
  • Mary Soderstrom – The Descent of Andrew McPherson