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.

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