Each winner of the 1987 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit received $5000 and a medal from the Governor General of Canada. The winners and nominees were selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.
The Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit nominally increased in number from 8 in 1986 to 14 in 1987, with the addition of four awards for children's book writing and illustration and two awards for translation. The four Children's Literature awards, however, were simply the four annual Canada Council Children's Literature Prizes (1975 to 1986) under a new name.
| width=15% | Category | width=30% | Winner | width=55% | Nominated |
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| Fiction | M. T. Kelly, A Dream Like Mine |
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| Non-fiction | Michael Ignatieff, The Russian Album |
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| Poetry | Gwendolyn MacEwen, Afterworlds |
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| Drama | John Krizanc, Prague |
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| Children's literature | Morgan Nyberg, Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army |
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| Children's illustration | Marie-Louise Gay, Rainy Day Magic |
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| French to English translation | Patricia Claxton, Enchantment and Sorrow: The Autobiography of Gabrielle Roy |
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| width=15% | Category | width=30% | Winner | width=55% | Nominated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiction | Gilles Archambault, |
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| Non-fiction | Jean Larose, La petite noirceur |
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| Poetry | Fernand Ouellette, Les Heures |
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| Drama | Jeanne-Mance Delisle, Un oiseau vivant dans la gueule |
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| Children's literature | David Schinkel and Yves Beauchesne, Le Don |
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| Children's illustration | Darcia Labrosse, Venir au monde |
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| English to French translation | Ivan Steenhout and Christiane Teasdale, L'Homme qui se croyait aimé |
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