The 2026 Canada Prizes shortlist is here, featuring ten books that reflect the range and originality of humanities and social sciences (HSS) scholarship in Canada today.
Selected by the Academic Council from books supported through the Federation’s Scholarly Book Awards, this year’s shortlist brings together titles in English and French by both first-time and previously published authors.
Taken together, these books return us to the questions HSS scholarship is uniquely positioned to take on: history, power, language, land, identity, and the lives we build with one another.
Five winners will be announced on June 10, 2026, at the Federation’s 30th Anniversary Gala: At the Inflection Point, during the Big Thinking Summit in Edmonton.
Join us in congratulating this year’s shortlisted authors and books.
2026 Canada Prizes shortlist
- Marie-Ève Bradette, Langue(s) en portage : Résurgence littéraire et langagière dans les écritures autochtones féminines (Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal)
- Edited by François Charbonneau and Michel Bock, Le moment Montfort dans la francophonie canadienne (University of Ottawa Press)
- Éléna Choquette, Land and the Liberal Project: Canada's Violent Expansion (UBC Press)
- Edited by Daniel Coleman, Ki'en Debicki, and Bonnie M. Freeman, Deyohahá:ge:: Sharing the River of Life (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
- Patrick M. Condon, Broken City: Land Speculation, Inequality, and Urban Crisis (UBC Press)
- Dominique Garand, Anthologie du pamphlet et de la polémique au Québec de 1800 à 2000 (Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal)
- Stéphanie Nutting, Rumeur, potin et parole oiseuse dans le théâtre contemporain d’expression française (Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal)
- Susie O’Brien, What the World Might Look Like: Decolonial Stories of Resilience and Refusal (McGill-Queen's University Press)
- Marianne-Sarah Saulnier, Les femmes cobra : La danse comme espace de transgression des normes de genre au Rajasthan (Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal)
- Paul db Watkins, Soundin' Canaan: Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
Learn more about the Canada Prizes
Community members can join the winners’ announcement on June 10 by purchasing Summit passes and gala tickets when registering for the Big Thinking Summit.
The Canada Prizes are made possible thanks to the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).