Atwood Gibson Prize names five finalists for 2026 fiction award
Téa Mutonji’s My Person is one of five novels shortlisted for the 2026 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
Photo credit: Penguin Random House
Five books are in the running for the 2026 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, with novels by Zak Jones, Téa Mutonji, Lisa Robertson, Blair Palmer Yoxall and Ashraf Zaghal making this year’s shortlist.
The Writers’ Trust of Canada announced the finalists Sept. 23 after a jury of David Chariandy, Conor Kerr and Kathleen Winter considered 118 titles representing 62 publishing imprints. The prize’s total purse has increased to $100,000, with the winner receiving $70,000 and each of the other four finalists receiving $7,500.
Zak Jones is shortlisted for Fancy Gap, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada. Set in southern Appalachia, the novel centres on a family dealing with illness, addiction and estrangement, with two brothers and their born-again grandmother among its central characters. Jones is a dual Canadian-American citizen who grew up between rural North Carolina and Toronto, is a University of Toronto PhD candidate and won the Writers’ Trust’s 2023 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.
Téa Mutonji’s My Person, from Random House Canada, follows Tania and Margot as a friendship of more than 20 years begins to come apart when Tania decides she wants to separate their lives. The novel examines the dependencies and tensions that have accumulated between them, including race, privilege and codependency. Mutonji was born in Congo-Kinshasa and is based in Toronto; her earlier story collection, Shut Up You’re Pretty, was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust fiction prize in 2019 and later won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the Trillium Book Award.
In Riverwork, published by Coach House Books, Lisa Robertson follows Lucy Frost, a Canadian living in Paris who inherits research left by her vanished great-aunt into the Bièvre, a river that once ran through parts of the city before being buried. Lucy continues that research, connecting the river’s history with the lives of working women and her aunt’s disappearance. Robertson is a Canadian poet, essayist and novelist who lives in France, and her previous novel, The Baudelaire Fractal, was shortlisted for the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.
Calgary writer Blair Palmer Yoxall makes the shortlist with Treat Them as Buffalo, published by HarperAvenue. Set during the events of 1885 on the Prairies, the novel follows Nikosis “Niko” Eriksen after his cousin disappears, drawing his family and community into a search for missing Métis boys. Yoxall is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta, and his fiction has previously been recognized, including a shortlist placement for an Indigenous Voices Award.
Ashraf Zaghal’s Seven Heavens Away, published by House of Anansi Press, takes place in Jerusalem in 2015 and follows Palestinian teenager Aziz after the death of his friend Hassan. The novel follows Aziz through his relationships with his family and community, as well as his connection with Dafna, a Jewish girl. Zaghal is a Palestinian Canadian writer who was born and raised in Jerusalem and now lives in Toronto; he has published four poetry collections in Arabic, while Seven Heavens Away is his debut novel.
The Atwood Gibson Prize recognizes a Canadian novel or short-story collection published during the year. The award is named for Writers’ Trust co-founders Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson, who helped establish the organization in 1976.
This year’s winner will be announced Nov. 10 during the Writers’ Trust Awards at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, where winners of eight literary prizes are scheduled to be announced.
