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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.
| Category | Winner | Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction |  Jack Hodgins, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne |
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| Non-fiction | Maria Tippett, Emily Carr |
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| Poetry or drama | Michael Ondaatje, There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do |
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| Category | Winner | Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction | Marie-Claire Blais, Le Sourd dans la ville |
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| Non-fiction | Dominique Clift and Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos, Le fait anglais au Québec |
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| Poetry or drama | Robert Melançon, Peinture aveugle |
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