1979 Governor General's Awards

Each winner of the 1979 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts. The 1979 awards were the first for which a shortlist of finalists was released a month before the presentation of the awards.

English

Category	Winner	Nominated
Fiction	Jack Hodgins, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne	Margaret Atwood, Life Before Man Matt Cohen, The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone
Non-fiction	Maria Tippett, Emily Carr	Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe Larry Pratt and John Richards, Prairie Capitalism
Poetry or drama	Michael Ondaatje, There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do	Erin Mouré, Empire, York Street Susan Musgrave, A Man to Marry, a Man to Bury

French

Category	Winner	Nominated
Fiction	Marie-Claire Blais, Le Sourd dans la ville	Suzanne Jacob, La Survie Suzanne Paradis, Miss Charlie
Non-fiction	Dominique Clift and Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos, Le fait anglais au Québec	Daniel Latouche, Une société de l'ambiguïté Pierre Nepveu, Les mots à l'écoute
Poetry or drama	Robert Melançon, Peinture aveugle	Marcel Bélanger, Migrations André Roy, Les passions du samedi

Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit
English-language awards	Fiction Non-fiction Poetry (1981–present) Drama (1981–present) Poetry or drama (1937–1980) Children's literature Children's illustration French to English translation
French-language awards	Fiction Non-fiction Poetry (1981–present) Drama (1981–present) Poetry or drama (1959–1980) Children's literature Children's illustration English to French translation
Awards by year	1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016