The shortlisted nominees for the 2016 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were announced on October 4, 2016,^[1] and the winners were announced on October 25.^[2]

Category	Winner	Nominated
Fiction	Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing	Gary Barwin, Yiddish for Pirates Anosh Irani, The Parcel Kerry Lee Powell, Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush Katherena Vermette, The Break
Non-fiction	Bill Waiser, A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905	Kamal Al-Solaylee, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (To Everyone) Teva Harrison, In-Between Days: A Memoir about Living with Cancer Harold R. Johnson, Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (and Yours) Marc Raboy, Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World
Poetry	Steven Heighton, The Waking Comes Late	Joe Denham, Regeneration Machine Susan Holbrook, Throaty Wipes Garry Thomas Morse, Prairie Harbour Rachel Rose, Marry & Burn
Drama	Colleen Murphy, Pig Girl	Brad Fraser, Kill Me Now Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, A Man A Fish Jordan Tannahill, Concord Floral Mary Vingoe, Refuge
Children's literature	Martine Leavitt, Calvin	Mikaela Everett, The Unquiet E. K. Johnston, A Thousand Nights Trilby Kent, Once, in a Town Called Moth Tim Wynne-Jones, The Emperor of Any Place
Children's illustration	Jon-Erik Lappano and Kellen Hatanaka, Tokyo Digs a Garden	Jo Ellen Bogart and Sydney Smith, The White Cat and the Monk Lucy Ruth Cummins, A Hungry Lion or a Dwindling Assortment of Animals Mireille Messier and Pierre Pratt, The Branch Esmé Shapiro, Ooko
French to English translation	Lazer Lederhendler, The Party Wall (Catherine Leroux, Le mur mitoyen)	Rhonda Mullins, Guano (Louis Carmain, Guano) Neil Smith, The Goddess of Fireflies (Geneviève Pettersen, La déesse des mouches à feu)

Category	Winner	Nominated
Fiction	Dominique Fortier, Au péril de la mer	Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, La femme qui fuit Hugues Corriveau, Les Enfants de Liverpool Martine Delvaux, Blanc dehors Daniel Grenier, L'Année la plus longue
Non-fiction	Roland Viau, Amerindia : essais d'ethnohistoire autochtone	André Habib, La main gauche de Jean-Pierre Léaud Michel Morin, Être et ne pas être Yvon Rivard, Exercices d'amitié Louise Warren, La vie flottante
Poetry	Normand de Bellefeuille, Le poème est une maison de bord de mer	Louise Bouchard, Personne et le soleil Antoine Dumas, Au monde inventaire Pierre Nepveu, La dureté des matières et de l'eau Rodney Saint-Éloi, Je suis la fille du baobab brûlé
Drama	Wajdi Mouawad, Inflammation du verbe vivre	Hervé Bouchard, Le faux pas de l'actrice dans sa traîne Michel Marc Bouchard, La divine illusion Sébastien David, Les haut-parleurs Olivier Kemeid, Five Kings : l'histoire de notre chute
Children's literature	François Gilbert, Hare Krishna	Camille Bouchard, Nouvelle-Orléans Mario Brassard, Quand hurle la nuit Amélie Dumoulin, Fé M Fé Patrick Isabelle, Camille
Children's illustration	Stéphanie Lapointe and Rogé, Grand-père et la lune	Jules Asselin and Ninon Pelletier, Le mystère des billes d'or Simon Boulerice and Delphie Côté-Lacroix, Florence et Léon Andrée Poulin and Marie Lafrance, Deux garçons et un secret Yayo, Pikiq
English to French translation	Catherine Ego, La destruction des Indiens des Plaines : maladies, famines organisées, disparition du mode de vie autochtone (James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains)	Christophe Bernard, Les hautes montagnes du Portugal (Yann Martel, The High Mountains of Portugal) Daniel Poliquin, Le grand retour : le réveil autochtone (John Ralston Saul, The Comeback) Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné, Joshua (Mordecai Richler, Joshua Then and Now) Madeleine Stratford, Elle nage (Marianne Apostolides, Swim)

• Governor General's Awards