Annal:2002 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Governor General's Literary Award in the year 2002. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 2002 Governor General's winner
- Score: 10.52
As Sawai deftly turns over the stones of these people’s lives and reveals the squalor, the fear and the unhappiness that lie beneath, she also uncovers that most precious of human qualities—hope.
Unless: A Novel
- 2003 Orange shortlist
- 2002 Booker shortlist
- 2002 Giller Prize shortlist
- 2002 Governor General's finalists
- 2002 JT Black-Fiction shortlist
- Score: 30.53
For all of her life, 44 year old Reta Winters has enjoyed the useful monotony of happiness: a loving family, good friends, growing success as a writer of light ‘summertime’ fiction. But this placid existence is cracked wide open when her beloved eldest daughter, Norah, drops out to sit on a gritty street corner, silent but for the sign around her neck that reads ‘GOODNESS.’ Reta’s search for what drove her daughter to such a desperate statement turns into an unflinching and surprisingly funny meditation on where we find meaning and hope.
Warmth, passion and wisdom come together in Shields’ remarkably supple prose. Unless, a harrowing but ultimately consoling story of one family’s anguish and healing, proves her mastery of extraordinary fictions about ordinary life.
The Navigator of New York: A Novel
- 2002 Giller Prize shortlist
- 2002 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 12.52
The Navigator of New York is set against the background of the tumultuous rivalry between Lieutenant Peary and Dr. Cook to get to the North Pole at the beginning of the 20th century. It is also the story of a young man’s quest for his origins, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to the bustling streets of New York, and the remotest regions of the Arctic.
Devlin Stead’s father, an Arctic explorer, stops returning home at the end of his voyages and announces he is moving to New York, as “New York is to explorers what Paris is to artists”; eventually he is…
Exile: A novel
- 2002 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.52
For Carlos Romero Estevez, freedom from danger means a life in exile. Rescued from his home in a Latin American military dictatorship—where his writings have been banned and he is wanted by the state—the poet and journalist is brought to a new home in Vancouver. His rescuers, a group devoted to helping oppressed writers, think they’ve found a hero, a posterboy. Carlos thinks he’s found a new life, new freedom, and new, powerful friends. But soon everyone’s illusions are dispelled, and Carlos finds life in exile to be a new kind of prison.
- 2002 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.52
The Case of Lena S. follows the life, loves, and coming-of-age of sixteen-year-old Mason Crowe during a year in which he will learn what it truly means to be in the world.
