Of the 2024 longlist, the jury writes:
Writers of fiction imagine, as a matter of course, what it means to be another: to be marginalized, to be suppressed, to be guilty—to be joyful!—or simply not seen. Their words sing lives, extol our virtues, nurse our injuries, expose our faults, and compel us to consider worlds about which we are curious and unknowing or had no idea existed. It is the profound belief in our common humanity writers share that makes this possible, a conviction never more important than in fractious times such as we are living today, and brilliantly on display in the concerns and stories of these twelve exceptional Canadian authors. The worlds they thrillingly put within readers’ reach scan centuries, cultures, divides; they are sometimes beautiful and sometimes traumatic, but always richly conveyed and ardently felt.