2008 in Canadian literature

This is a summary of the year 2008 in Canadian literature.

Events

• January 8 - A television series based on Douglas Coupland's novel jPod debuts on CBC Television.
• February 29 - Paul Quarrington's 1987 novel King Leary wins the 2008 edition of Canada Reads.
• June 12 - Rawi Hage's 2006 novel De Niro's Game wins the 2008 International Dublin Literary Award.
• July 1 - Writers Maria Campbell, George Elliott Clarke and Audrey Thomas are inducted into the Order of Canada.
• November 11 - Joseph Boyden's novel Through Black Spruce wins the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
• November 18 - 2008 Governor General's Awards.

Books

Fiction

• David Adams Richards, The Lost Highway
• André Alexis, Asylum
• David Bergen, The Retreat
• Joseph Boyden, Through Black Spruce
• Austin Clarke, More
• Anthony De Sa, Barnacle Love
• Cory Doctorow, Little Brother
• Emma Donoghue, The Sealed Letter
• Marina Endicott, Good to a Fault
• Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo
• Bill Gaston, The Order of Good Cheer
• Rawi Hage, Cockroach
• Kenneth J. Harvey, Blackstrap Hawco
• Maggie Helwig, Girls Fall Down
• Mark Anthony Jarman, My White Planet
• Ibi Kaslik, The Angel Riots
• Patrick Lane, Red Dog, Red Dog
• Pasha Malla, The Withdrawal Method
• Andrew Pyper, The Killing Circle
• Paul Quarrington, The Ravine
• Nino Ricci, The Origin of Species
• Robert J. Sawyer, Identity Theft and Other Stories
• Mary Swan, The Boys in the Trees
• Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

Non-fiction

• Margaret Atwood, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
• Stephen Clarkson, My Life as a Dame: The Personal and the Political in the Writings of Christina McCall
• Charles Foran, Join the Revolution, Comrade
• Mark Frutkin, Erratic North: A Vietnam Draft Resister's Life in the Canadian Bush
• Stephen Henighan, A Report on the Afterlife of Culture
• Val Ross, Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic
• Norman Snider, The Roaring Eighties and Other Good Times
• Drew Hayden Taylor, Me Sexy: An Exploration of Native Sex and Sexuality

Poetry

• R. M. Vaughan, Troubled

Deaths

• February 17 - Val Ross, writer and journalist
• June 11 - James Reaney, novelist
• July 14 - Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite, writer and musician