Each winner of the 1970 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Winners

English Language

*Fiction:

Dave Godfrey Dave Godfrey (9 August 1938 – 21 June 2015) was a Canadian writer, professor, and publisher. His novel ''The New Ancestors'' won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction in 1970.

, ''The New Ancestors''. *Poetry or Drama:

bpNichol Barrie Phillip Nichol (30 September 1944 – 25 September 1988), known as bpNichol, was a Canadian poet, writer, sound poet, editor, Creative Writing teacher at York University in Toronto and grOnk/Ganglia Press publisher. His body of work enc ...

, ''The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid'' *Poetry and Prose: Michael Ondaatje, ''The Collected Works of Billy the Kid''.

French Language

*Fiction:

Monique Bosco Monique Bosco (June 8, 1927 – May 17, 2007) was an Austrian-born Canadian journalist and writer. Background She was born in Vienna into an Austrian-Jewish family and moved to France where she lived until 1931. In 1940, Bosco spent a year I ...

, ''La femme de Loth''. *Poetry or Drama:

Jacques Brault Jacques Brault (29 March 1933 – 20 October 2022) was a French Canadian poet and translator who lived in Cowansville, Quebec, Canada. He was born to a poor family, but received an excellent education at the Université de Montréal and at the ...

, ''Quand nous serons heureux''. *Non-Fiction:

Fernand Ouellette Fernand Ouellette is a Quebecois writer. He is a three-time winner of the Governor General's Awards, having won the Governor General's Award for French-language non-fiction at the 1970 Governor General's Awards for ''Les actes retrouvés'', the ...

, ''Les actes retrouvés''. {{GovernorGeneralsAwards Governor General's Awards Governor Generals Awards, 1970 1970 literary awards