2012 PMLA winners, shortlist and judges
The winners, shortlistees and judges of the 2012 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
Judges 2012
Fiction and poetry panel
Mr Joel Becker (Chair)
Dr Lyn Gallacher
Professor Chris Wallace-Crabbe AM
Mr Peter Craven
Nonfiction and Australian history panel
Mr Christopher (Chris) Masters PSM (Chair)
Dr Faye Sutherland
Mr Colin Steele
Dr Michelle Arrow
Children’s and young adult literature panel
Ms Judith White (Chair)
Ms Mary-Ruth Mendel
Mr Robert (Bob) Sessions
Australian history
WINNER: The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia – Peter Grammage
The Biggest Estate on Earth
WINNER
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Australian history
Published by: Allen & Unwin
Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised.
With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, The Biggest Estate on Earth rewrites the history of this continent, with huge implications for us today. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires we now experience. And what we think of as virgin bush in a national park is nothing of the kind.
About the author
Bill Gammage
Bill Gammage is a historian and adjunct professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. He is best known as author of the ground-breaking The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War
Judges’ comments
Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate on Earth argues that the Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we previously envisioned.
The Biggest Estate on Earth recasts, in a quantum leap, our perceptions of Aboriginal Australia and our understanding of the historic Australian environment and its land care.
Gammage forces us to reconsider our intellectual landscape, and thus present day environmental practices, through his dramatic historical revisioning of our physical landscape.
Gammage’s compelling central insight is that the landscape of 1788 was not natural but rather that it was made by Aboriginal people.
The author again demonstrates a rare capacity to open a fresh horizon, capturing both history and his reader.
1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia – James Boyce
1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Australian history
Published by: Black Inc
With the founding of Melbourne in 1835, a flood of settlers began spreading out across the Australian continent. In three years more land—and more people—was conquered than in the preceding fifty.
In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces the power plays in Hobart, Sydney and London, and describes the key personalities of Melbourne’s early days. He conjures up the Australian frontier – its complexity, its rawness and the way its legacy is still with us today. And he asks the poignant question largely ignored for 175 years: could it have been different?
With his first book, Van Diemen's Land, Boyce introduced an utterly fresh approach to the nation’s history. 'In re-imagining Australia's past', Richard Flanagan wrote, 'it invents a new future'. 1835 continues this untold story.
About the author
James Boyce
James Boyce is the author of Born Bad (2014), 1835 (2011) and Van Diemen's Land (2008). Van Diemen’s Land, won the Tasmania Book Prize and the Colin Roderick Award and was shortlisted for the NSW, Victorian and Queensland premiers’ literary awards, as well as the Prime Minister’s award.
Tim Flannery described it as 'a brilliant book and a must-read for anyone interested in how land shapes people'.
1835, won the Age Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award, the Western Australian Premier's Book Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Literature and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award. The Sunday Age described it as “A first-class piece of historical writing”.
James Boyce wrote the Tasmania chapter for First Australians, the companion book to the acclaimed SBS TV series. He has a PhD from the University of Tasmania, where he is an honorary research associate of the School of Geography and Environmental Studies.
Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation – Russell McGregor
Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal people and the Australian Nation
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Australian history
Published by: Aboriginal Studies Press
McGregor offers a holistic interpretation of the complex relationship between Indigenous and settler Australians during the middle four decades of the twentieth century. Combining the perspectives of political, social and cultural history in a coherent narrative, he provides a cogent analysis of how the relationship changed, and the impediments to change.
McGregor’s focus is on the quest for Aboriginal inclusion in the Australia nation; a task which dominated the Aboriginal agenda at the time. McGregor challenges existing scholarship and assumptions, particularly around assimilation. In doing so he provides an understanding of why assimilation once held the approval of many reformers, including Indigenous activists.
He reveals that the inclusion of Aboriginal people in the Australian nation was not a function of political lobbying and parliamentary decision making. Rather, it depended at least as much on Aboriginal people’s public profile, and the way their demonstrated abilities partially wore down the apathy and indifference of settler Australians.
About the author
Russell McGregor
Russell McGregor is Associate Professor of history at James Cook University in Townsville. He has published extensively on the history of settler Australian attitudes toward Aboriginal people, including the award-winning book Imagined Destinies. His other research interests are in Australian nationalism and environmental history.
Immigration Nation: The Secret History of Us – TV series
Immigration Nation: Secret History of Us
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Australian history
Published by: Renegade
Immigration Nation is an ambitious and revealing three part series telling the secret history of how modern multicultural Australia was forged against the odds. The series uses interviews with eminent historians and eyewitnesses to these momentous events that built a nation, together with rarely seen archive footage and specially shot sequences in the actual places the events unfolded both here and overseas.
This is the story of who was allowed in and who was pushed out of a daring social experiment known as the White Australia Policy.
Breaking the Sheep’s Back – Charles Massy
Breaking the Sheep’s Back
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Australian history
Published by: University of Queensland Press
Once a great nation-building icon, the wool business today is but a third of its size when Australia ‘rode on the sheep’s back’. The story is a tragedy that reaches into the offices of Prime Ministers and Cabinet members across seven federal governments and its agencies. Despite this politically sanctioned collapse, there has never been a royal commission. Until now, no one has investigated what precipitated the great crash of February 1991 or the industry’s ongoing decline.
Breaking the Sheep’s Back is Massy’s private royal commission – a must-read account of the decline and fall of the Australian wool empire.
About the author
Charles Massy
Charles Massy has had a long involvement in the wool industry and with sheep breeding. He founded the leading Merino stud Severn Park in 1975. He has published numerous articles on the wool industry, Merino and wool history and the environment, as well as serving on the boards of the International Wool Secretariat and the Australian Wool Research and Promotion Organisation.
His first book, The Australian Merino, was published by Penguin in 1990. After being traded on eBay for several hundred dollars a copy, it was re-released by Random House in 2007 and its print run sold out almost immediately.
Young adult literature
WINNER: When We Were Two – Robert Newton
When We Were Two
WINNER
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Young adult literature
Published by: Penguin Random House
Dan and his brother Eddie take off for the coast, in search of their lost mother, in search of a better life . . . but it's a long road they face and Dan must use all his wits to get them there in one piece.
When they are taken under the wings of a group of would-be soldiers marching over the mountains to join up for the Great War, Dan and Eddie's journey becomes something quite unexpected. The experiences they share will shape their future beyond recognition.
This extraordinary rite of passage is a powerful, heart-rending story—Robert Newton at his very best.
About the author
Robert Newton
Robert Newton works as a full-time firefighter with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. His first novel, My Name is Will Thompson, was published in 2001.
Since then he has written six other novels for young people, including Runner, The Black Dog Gang and When We Were Two, which won the 2012 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction.
He lives in Melbourne with his wife and three daughters.
Judges' comments
The looming shadow of war is ever present in When We Were Two and the book speaks of the innocence, naivety and hope of a generation of young men and boys who marched towards it.
Yet the strength of the story lies in the unconditional love between the two brothers, and in their spirit and courage which are destined to survive the slaughter to come.
This is historical fiction of rare accomplishment. When We Were Two deserves to become a classic.
A Straight Line to My Heart – Bill Condon
A Straight Line to My Heart
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Young adult literature
Published by: Allen & Unwin
School is over, not just for the year, but forever.
Tiff and Kayla are free, which is what they've always wanted, but now summer is nearly at and end and that means life decisions.
Tiff is hoping her job at the local paper will lead to something more. But 'The Shark' soon puts her straight on what it takes to become a hard-nosed reporter like him. At home, Reggie - the only grandad Tiff's ever known - has quit the smokes and diagnosed himself as cactus.
Then Kayla hits her with some big news. And into all this stumbles Davey, the first boy who has ever really wanted to know her. Tiff is smart with words and rarely does tears, but in one short week she discovers that words don't always get you there; they don't let you say all the stuff from deep in your heart.
About the author
Bill Condon
Bill Condon was born in 1949 and lives with his wife Dianne (Di) Bates, also a children's author, in the seaside town of Woonona, on the south coast of New South Wales.
He left school at the first chance he got and worked in an assortment of jobs before a chance meeting with Larry Rivera, the editor of a local weekly newspaper, led Bill into a career as a journalist. He left journalism to devote himself full-time to writing for children, and in 2010 Bill was the winner of the inaugural Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction for his book Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God.
When not writing, Bill plays tennis, snooker, and Scrabble, but hardly ever at the same time. His dream is to receive a wildcard invitation to play tennis at Wimbledon - if nothing else, his knees would provide great comic relief for the spectators.
Alaska – Sue Saliba
Alaska
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Young adult literature
Published by: Penguin Random House
mia's heart made a sound that no one heard except for mia
late one night when she woke from dreams into darkness.
ethan was asleep beside her, and em was a forest away.
outside it was night and dark and alaska.the sky was upside down.
When Mia follows her sister halfway across the world to Alaska, she discovers that love can be found in the most unexpected and beautiful of places. But can Mia find the courage to follow her heart in Alaska? And what if the one you love is not all that you wish them to be?
About the author
Sue Saliba
Sue Saliba lives on Phillip Island in Victoria with her husband Bruno, two cats and a dog.
She has previously published the YA novel Watching Seagulls, and the children's book The Skin of a Star, as well as short stories and poetry.
Her second novel something in the world called love won the Victorian Premier's Award for YA fiction and the APA Design Awards Best Children's Cover.
Her third young adult novel, Alaska, published in 2011, was short-listed for both the APA Design Awards and the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, and was a notable book in the CBCA Awards.
Being Here – Barry Jonsberg
Being Here
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Young adult literature
Published by: Allen & Unwin
Sixteen-year-old Carly is interviewing Leah Cartwright for her local history project. But Leah resists, determined instead to tell her own story: that of a lonely child on an isolated farm, a girl whose only escape is into the world of books. And when Adam appears in the orchard Leah discovers a friend. A secret friend.
Leah draws Carly in with the magic of story - to her present, her past, her secrets, and her unique friendship with Adam.
About the author
Barry Jonsberg
Barry Jonsberg's young adult novels, The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull and It's Not All About YOU, Calma! were short-listed for the Children's Book Council Book of the Year, Older Readers.
It's Not All About YOU, Calma! also won the Adelaide Festival Award for Children's Literature, Dreamrider was short-listed in the NSW Premier's Awards for the Ethel Turner prize and Cassie (Girlfriend Fiction) was short-listed for the Children's Peace Literature Award.
Barry lives in Darwin with his wife, children and two dogs. His books have been published in the US, the UK, France, Poland, Germany and China.
Pan’s Whisper – Sue Lawson
Pan’s Whisper
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Young adult literature
Published by: Penguin Random House
When you’re fighting to forget, what would make you remember?
Pan Harris is brash, loud and damaged. Ordered into foster care, Pan angry at the mother who abandoned her, and the older sister who kept her from her father.
Pan is certain that she knows the reality of her past – until she meets Hunter, the boy who understands her story better than anyone else, and who just may be the key to unlocking the truth of Pan’s memories. But are some memories best left forgotten? And is Hunter worth Pan breaking her most important rule? Never. Trust. Anyone.
About the author
Sue Lawson
Sue Lawson writes books for children and young adults.
In 2012, Pan’s Whisper was short-listed for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, was a Notable Book at the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards and won the Australian Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature.
Her 2015 novel Freedom Ride was short-listed for the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award in the Older Category and in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature; and was long-listed for the Davitt Awards in the Young Adult Novels category.
Fiction
WINNER: Foal’s Bread – Gillian Mears
Foal’s Bread
WINNER
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Fiction
Published by: Allen & Unwin
Set in hardscrabble farming country and around the country show high-jumping circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to the Second World War, Foal's Bread tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by the vicissitudes of the land.
It is a love story of impossible beauty and sadness, a chronicle of dreams 'turned inside out', and miracles that never last, framed against a world both tender and unspeakably hard. Written in luminous prose and with an aching affinity for the landscape the book describes, Foal's Bread is the work of a born writer at the height of her considerable powers. It is a stunning work of remarkable originality and power, one that confirms Gillian Mears' reputation as one of our most exciting and acclaimed writers.
About the author
Gillian Mears
Gillian Mears grew up in the northern New South Wales towns of Grafton and Lismore. Acclaim came early, with her short-story collections and novels winning major prizes. Her books include Ride a Cock Horse, Fineflour, The Mint Lawn, The Grass Sister and A Map of the Gardens. She wrote Foal's Bread while living in the Adelaide Hills.
Judges’ comments
Foal’s Bread is the story of two generations living on hard-bitten Australian farming land. The women in particular are compelling for their tenderness and toughness, in a world where families can be cruel and joy is fleeting. This is a story through which we come to better know ourselves.
Written in transfixing prose and with an—at times—aching affinity for the harsh landscape the book describes, Foal’s Bread is an extraordinary work of remarkable strength and originality.
Autumn Laing – Alex Miller
Autumn Laing
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Fiction
Published by: Allen & Unwin
Autumn Laing seduces Pat Donlon with her pearly thighs and her lust for life and art. In doing so she not only compromises the trusting love she has with her husband, Arthur, she also steals the future from Pat's young and beautiful wife, Edith, and their unborn child.
Fifty-three years later, cantankerous, engaging, unrestrainable 85-year-old Autumn is shocked to find within herself a powerful need for redemption. As she begins to tell her story, she writes, 'They are all dead and I am old and skeleton-gaunt. This is where it began.'
Written with compassion and intelligence, this energetic, funny and wise novel peels back the layers of storytelling and asks what truth has to do with it. Autumn Laing is an unflinchingly intimate portrait of a woman and her time - she is unforgettable.
About the author
Alex Miller
Alex Miller is twice winner of Australia's premier literary prize, The Miles Franklin Literary Award, first in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and again in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country.
He is also an overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game. His fifth novel, Conditions of Faith, won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the 2001 New South Wales Premier's Awards.
In 2011 he won this award a second time with his novel Lovesong. Lovesong also won the People's Choice Award in the NSW Premier's Awards, the Age Book of the Year Award and the Age Fiction Prize for 2011.
In 2007 Landscape of Farewell was published to wide critical acclaim and in 2008 won the Chinese Annual Foreign Novels 21st Century Award for Best Novel and the Manning Clark Medal for an outstanding contribution to Australian cultural life. It was also short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the ALS Gold Medal and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Sarah Thornhill – Kate Grenville
Sarah Thornhill
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Fiction
Published by: The Text Publishing Company
Sarah Thornhill is the youngest child of William Thornhill, convict-turned-landowner on the Hawkesbury River. She grows up in the fine house her father is so proud of, a strong-willed young woman who’s certain where her future lies. She’s known Jack Langland since she was a child, and always loved him. But the past is waiting in ambush with its dark legacy.
This powerful novel will enthral readers of Kate Grenville’s bestselling The Secret River, winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
About the author
Kate Grenville
Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers.
Her bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.
The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize.
Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History. Kate lives in Sydney and her most recent works are the non-fiction books One Life: My Mother’s Story and The Case Against Fragrance.
All That I Am – Anna Funder
All That I Am
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Fiction
Published by: Penguin Random House
When Hitler comes to power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers become hunted outlaws overnight. United in their resistance to the madness and tyranny of Nazism, they flee the country.
Dora, passionate and fearless; her lover, the great playwright Ernst Toller; her younger cousin Ruth and Ruth’s husband Hans find refuge in London. Here they take awe-inspiring risks in order to continue their work in secret. But England is not the safe-haven they think it is, and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart.
About the author
Anna Funder
Anna Funder is the author of the acclaimed All That I AM, winner of the 2012 Miles Franklin Literary Awards, among other awards. Her first book, the internationally bestselling Stasiland, won the 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize and was published in twenty countries and translated into sixteen languages.
Anna Funder is a former DAAD and Rockerfeller Foundation Fellow.
She grew up in Melbourne and Paris and now lives in New York with her husband and family.
Forecast: Turbulence – Janette Turner
Forecast: Turbulence
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Fiction
Published by: Harper Collins
Violent weather pervades this breathtaking collection, reflecting the cataclysmic emotions swirling through the lives of the protagonists. A loner becomes obsessed with the beautiful face of a neighbour, a child and his enigmatic grandmother sit out a hurricane, two fragile girls visit their stepfathers in prison and share a macabre ritual, a young woman is deeply ashamed of what her father has become ...
Janette Turner Hospital sensitively weaves stories of heartbreaking poignancy, shocking power and steadfast resolve, all honouring a universal question: how can we maintain equilibrium in a turbulent and uncertain world?
About the author
Janette Turner
Janette Turner Hospital was born in Melbourne and grew up in Queensland. She has taught in universities in Australia, Canada, England, France and the United States.
She has been a Visiting Professor and Distinguished Writer in Residence at M.I.T., Boston University, Colgate University, and Columbia University in New York.
For over a decade, she held an endowed chair as Carolina Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. As Carolina Distinguished Professor Emerita she continues to mentor students and teach one course each year.
Poetry
WINNER: Interferon Psalms – Luke Davies
Interferon Psalms
WINNER
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Poetry
Published by: Allen & Unwin
The ravaging effects of illness, the breakup of a relationship and the disturbing nature of relocation. These are the subjects under award-winning Luke Davies' meditative eye. Interferon Psalms is a song of the brutality of time, a song of death, yet equally as beautiful.
About the author
Luke Davies
Luke Davies is the author of three novels, God of Speed, Isabelle the Navigator and the cult bestseller Candy, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards in 1998 and has since been published in Britain, the United States and translated into German, Spanish, Hebrew and French.
A film version starring Heath Ledger was released in 2006 and won the AFI for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Davies was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Poetry in 2004. He has published five books of poetry, including Running with Light which was the winner of the Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2000, and Totem, which was the winner of the 2004 Age Book of the Year Award.
Judges’ comments
This long poem made up of shorter lyrics is a concerted effort by Luke Davies to write a major poem and it is notable for the power of its poetic realisation.
This potently organised suite of poems articulates a vision which invokes the traditional psalmist’s prerogative to utter the thousand names of the Most High.
Interferon Psalms encompasses not only the meditative intensities of the dark night of the soul but a tragicomic vision which is by turns dramatic, alarming and luminous in its formal expression.
Armour – John Kinsella
Armour
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Poetry
Published by: Pan MacMillan
With Armour, the great Australian poet John Kinsella has written his most spiritual work to date - and his most politically engaged.
The world in which these poems unfold is strangely poised between the material and the immaterial, and everything which enters it - kestrel and fox, moth and almond - does so illuminated by its own vivid presence: the impression is less a poet honouring his subjects than uncannily inhabiting them.
Elsewhere we find a poetry of lyric protest, as Kinsella scrutinizes the equivocal place of the human within this natural landscape, both as tenant and self-appointed steward
About the author
John Kinsella
John Kinsella is the author of over twenty books, and is editor of the international literary journal Salt.
He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University.
In 2007 he received the Fellowship of Australian Writers Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry. His previous collection, Shades of the Sublime & Beautiful, is also published by Picador.
Southern Barbarians – John Mateer
Southern Barbarians
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Poetry
Published by: Giramondo Publishing
The Portuguese traders who brought Europe to Japan in the sixteenth century were known as ‘southern barbarians’.
In his new collection John Mateer offers a contemporary re-charting of the Portuguese Empire, the hemisphere of influence which ties Portugal to Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Australia, Timor, Malacca, Macau and Japan. This empire is a fugitive one, notable for its saudade, its awareness of loss, its yearning for a world that appears only intermittently in this one, as an echo, a trace, a memory. At its heart is the figure of the poet, as migrant, tourist, desterrado.
His identity is inhabited by other identities, just as the place he is in reminds him of other places. He is Camões, author of Os Lusíadas, he is Pessoa of the multiple heteronyms. Haunted by doubles and reflections, accompanied by ‘spirit guides’ who pass between this world and the other, he is both ghostly and connected wherever he goes, connected in his ghostliness.
About the author
John Mateer
John Mateer has published books in Australia, and booklets that have appeared in Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, Japan, Macau and Portugal. In 2001 he was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry and he is a recipient of a Centenary Medal for his contribution to Australian literature.
His latest books are Ex-White: South African Poems (2009) and The West: Australian Poems 1989-2009 (Fremantle Press, 2010). Southern Barbarians is his seventh collection of poems published in Australia.
New and Selected Poems – Gig Ryan
New and Selected Poems
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Poetry
Published by: Giramondo Publishing
Gig Ryan’s poems have exerted an influence over two generations of writers and readers since the publication of her award-winning collection Division of Anger in 1981. An important figure in Australian poetry, her work is studied in high schools and universities, and represented in anthologies, but has not been available as a whole until now. New and Selected Poems is Ryan’s choice of her poems from the last thirty years, and includes new poems written since the publication of her previous collection.
Ryan’s poetry is remarkable for its dramatic qualities, which break through the conventions of language, charging word and image with expressive power. Her scenes open large perspectives, directed by irony, humour, compassion, or satiric intent. Her use of the vernacular captures the pretensions and vulnerabilities within everyday relationships. She employs traditional literary forms, one of the few contemporary poets to combine a hard-edged, disjunctive modern style with classical antecedents.
About the author
Gig Ryan
Gig Ryan has published six collections of poetry, including Pure and Applied, which won the 1999 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry, and Heroic Money, which was shortlisted for the 2002 NSW Premier’s Prize for Poetry. The recipient of writers’ fellowships and residencies from the Australia Council, she is a distinguished poetry critic, and poetry editor of the Age newspaper.
Ashes in the Air – Ali Alizadeh
Ashes in the Air
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Poetry
Published by: UQP
Alizadeh finds grace, wit and fire in this latest volume of poetry which explores themes such as fatherhood and migration. It ranges from the Tehran of Alizadeh’s childhood to the Australian coast of his teenage years. From the opening poem’s hymn to mobility and renewal to the elegiac ending, Ashes in the Air sparks with wisdom and energy.
About the author
Ali Alizadeh
Ali Alizadeh was born in Tehran in 1976 and migrated to Australia in 1991.
He graduated with Honours in Creative Arts from Griffith University, Gold Coast and holds a PhD in Professional Writing from Deakin University, Melbourne. He has taught at universities in Australia, China, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, and has also worked as street performer, hair-wrapper, and delivery driver.
He is a writer of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama and literary criticism, and this is his sixth book.
He lives with his wife and son.
Children's literature
WINNER: Goodnight Mice! – Frances Watts, Illustrator: Judy Watson
Goodnight Mice!
WINNER
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Children's literature
Published by: Harper Collins
Winner
Kiss Dad once. Cuddle Mum twice.
'Goodnight, Mum and Dad.'
'Goodnight, mice.'
It's time to say goodnight -- but the four cheeky mice skittering, scampering and scurrying to bed don't seem very sleepy! This warm, affectionate story is the perfect bedtime book for the whole family to share.
About the author
Frances Watts
Frances Watts was born in Switzerland and grew up in Australia.
Her bestselling picture books include Goodnight, Mice! (illustrated by Judy Watson), the winner of the 2012 Prime Minister's Award for Children's Fiction; 2006 CBC Honour Book Kisses for Daddy (ill. David Legge); and 2008 Children's Book Council of Australia award-winner Parsley Rabbit's Book about Books (ill. David Legge).
The Raven's Wing, set in Ancient Rome, and The Peony Lantern, set in nineteenth-century Japan, are her first middle grade/YA novels.
About the illustrator
Judy Watson
Judy Watson is a Melbourne based illustrator, working part time from her home studio.
Judy was very excited to see her first picture book, Goodnight, Mice! in print, and even more excited when it won the Prime Minister's Literary Award (Children's Fiction) in 2012. Goodnight, Mice! teamed her up with Frances Watts, author of the Extraordinary Ernie & Marvellous Maud series.
Extraordinary Ernie and Marvellous Maud was named a Notable Book in the Younger Readers category of the 2009 Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards.
Judges’ comments
The collaboration of writer and illustrator in this case makes for an almost perfect bedtime book.
Watts’s words sing with rhyme and repetition, making them excellent linguistic tools for small children, while Watson’s impish, affectionate illustrations speak to families from every type of background.
Father’s Day – Anne Brooksbank
Father's Day
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Children's literature
Published by: Penguin Random House
What if your parents had been keeping a secret from you your whole life?
Sam is in his first year of high school and has been saving his paper-round money for months to buy the one thing he yearns for – a boat. Suddenly his bank balance is doubled by an unknown person. But who is it? As Sam investigates he watches in dismay as his family life is turned upside down; and he is forced to make a decision that will change everything.
A story about finding strength and conviction in a confusing adult world.
About the author
Anne Brooksbank
Anne Brooksbank was born in Melbourne.
She was educated at Melbourne University, where she received an MA in English literature and history. She also studied painting at the National Gallery School, but then embarked on a writing career.
Her books for Penguin include Father's Day, Mother's Day and Sir Katherine. She has written extensively for film and television, and her credits include Blue Heelers and Water Rats. Her credits as a co-writer include Newsfront and Maybe This Time.
Anne lives in Palm Beach, Sydney.
The Jewel Fish of Karnak – Graeme Base
The Jewel Fish of Karnak
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Children's literature
Published by: Penguin Random House
Far away in Ancient Egypt, Jackal and Ibis are brought before the Cat Pharaoh to be punished for stealing from the town market. In a merciful moment, the Pharaoh decides to give the two friends one last chance: they must journey up the River Nile to the temple of Karnak and bring back something that has been taken from her - a beautiful and precious Jewel Fish.
But Jackal and Ibis are not very clever and ignore the warning she gives, taking a few extra treasures for themselves . . . and disaster follows!
About the author
Graeme Base
Graeme Base is one of the world’s leading creators of picture books. His madly detailed alphabet book Animalia received international acclaim when first published in 1986 and has now sold over three million copies. The book has also inspired an animated TV series, its own app and is the first offering in The Graeme Base Educational Suite.
Amongst numerous awards across many of his published works, Graeme has received the 2007 Speech Pathology Book of the Year (Younger Readers), the 2007 Wilderness Society Environment Award and the 1989 Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year.
Come Down, Cat? – Sonya Hartnett, Illustrator: Lucia Masciullo
Come Down, Cat?
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Children's literature
Published by: Penguin Random House
The day is ending, night is falling, and Nicholas's cat won't come down. High on the roof she licks her paws while Nicholas worries about her up there all alone. How can he coax her into the safe, warm house? She doesn't even want to come down from the roof . . . or does she?
From the combined talents of Sonya Hartnett and Lucia Masciullo comes a tale of friendship and bravery, and the things we are capable of doing for those we treasure most.
About the author
Sonya Hartnett
Sonya Hartnett's work has won numerous Australian and international literary prizes and has been published around the world. Uniquely, she is acclaimed for her stories for adults, young adults and children.
Her accolades include the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The Age Book of the Year, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for both Older and Younger Readers, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, shortlistings for the Miles Franklin Award and the CILP Carnegie Medal. Hartnett is also the first Australian recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2008).
About the illustrator
Lucia Masciullo
Lucia Masciullo grew up in Livorno, Tuscany, among smells of saltiness and rosemary. She always loved painting and after graduating with a degree in biology she decided to pursue her dream career as an artist. In 2006 she moved to Brisbane and since then has been happily working as a fine art painter and freelance illustrator.
Evangeline, Wish Keeper’s Helper – Maggie Alderson
Evangeline, Wish Keeper's Helper
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Children's literature
Published by: Evangeline, Wish Keeper's Helper
Evangeline the toy elephant lies under the bed all day, waiting and waiting for something to happen. If only she could be useful somewhere . . . Will her wish be granted?
About the author
Maggie Alderson
Maggie Alderson was born in London, brought up in Staffordshire and educated at the University of St Andrews. She has worked on nine magazines – editing four of them, including British ELLE – and two newspapers. For many years she covered the international fashion shows.
She has published six bestselling novels and four collections of her columns from Good Weekend magazine. She co-edited two books of short stories in aid of the charity War Child, and In Bed With, a collection of erotic short stories by well-known women writers.
She is married, and has one daughter and twelve pairs of Prada shoes.
About the illustrator
Claire Fletcher
Claire Fletcher studied graphic design and illustration at Central School of Art and Design, Kingston University, and the Royal College of Art.
She has been an illustrator since 1990.
She is co-founder and director of 'Made in Hastings' - a shop selling locally sourced gifts and artwork.
Non-fiction
WINNER: An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark – Mark McKenna
An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark
WINNER
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Non-fiction
Published by: Melbourne University Publishing
Manning Clark was a complex, demanding and brilliant man.
Mark McKenna’s compelling biography of this giant of Australia’s cultural landscape is informed by his reading of Clark’s extensive private letters, journals and diaries—many that have never been read before.
An Eye for Eternity paints a sweeping portrait of the man who gave Australians the signature account of their own history. To understand Clark’s life is to understand twentieth century Australia. Clark incessantly documented his life - leaving notes to the biographers he knew would pursue his story.
He had a deep need to be remembered and this book means he will now be understood in an unforgettable way.
About the author
Mark McKenna
Mark McKenna is one of Australia’s leading historians.
A research fellow in History at the University of Sydney, he is the author of several prize winning books, including Looking for Blackfellas’ Point: an Australian History of Place, which won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction and Book of the Year in the 2003 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
His essays and articles have been widely published in Australia and overseas.
Judges’ comments
This is a masterful biography, a deeply compassionate portrait of a complex and flawed man.
With a biographer’s literary skill and an historian’s diligence, Mark McKenna offers a rounded, humane treatment of Australia’s best-known historian, encompassing both Manning Clark’s life and work.
This wise, clear-eyed portrait of perhaps our most influential historian is essential reading for all Australians seeking to understand the transformation of Australian cultural nationalism in the second half of the twentieth century.
When Horse Became Saw – Anthony Macris
When Horse Became Saw
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Non-fiction
Published by: Penguin Random House
When Horse Became Saw is also an invaluable guide through the obstacles faced by anyone in this situation. It beautifully paints the emotional world of a father who finds himself in the strange country of autism – and something of a stranger in his own country, whose government refused to fund the therapy his son so desperately needed.
When Anthony Macris' son was diagnosed with autism, he and his partner Kathy had two choices - do what they were told, and could afford, or do what they thought best.
This is the tragic, joyful, instructive story of how Anthony and Kathy took control of the therapy themselves, turning their lives upside down to do so. It took a long time, but the radiance did return to Alex's face. By then he was a completely different person, and so were his parents.
About the author
Anthony Macris
Anthony Macris was born in Brisbane and is now a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney.
His novel Capital, Volume One, published in 1997, was shortlisted for the Best First Book, Commonwealth Writers' Prize, South East Asian Section. His book reviews, articles and features have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, Griffith Review and The Bulletin.
Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles – A J Brown
Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Non-fiction
Published by: The Federation Press
This biography charts Michael Kirby’s extraordinary public life from his first forays as a student politician in the early 1960s, to the ALRC in 1975, his extensive international roles with UN agencies, and his terms on the NSW Court of Appeal and the High Court.
About the author
A J Brown
A J Brown is Professor of Public Policy and Law, and program leader, public integrity and anti-corruption in the Centre for Governance & Public Policy at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
He is also a board member of Transparency International Australia, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, and member of the International Whistleblowing Research Network. He is a graduate of the University of New South Wales, Australian National University and Griffith University.
Formerly he was John F Kearney Professor of Public Law in Griffith Law School, a State ministerial policy advisor, judicial associate to the Hon Tony Fitzgerald AC, President of the Queensland Court of Appeal, and a senior investigation officer with Australia's Commonwealth Ombudsman.
He was a delegate to Australia's 2020 Summit in 2008, and a member of the Commonwealth Government Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Local Government in 2012. His biography Michael Kirby: Paradoxes & Principles (2011) was shortlisted for the National Biography Award, the Walkley Book Award and the Prime Minister's Literary Award (Non-Fiction).
Kinglake-350 – Adrian Hyland
Kinglake-350
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Non-fiction
Published by: The Text Publishing Company
Kinglake-350 is a masterpiece of writing about family, community, country life and what happens when a day of ultimate terror arrives.
Adrian Hyland takes a dramatic and compelling sequence of events on that day and weaves them into a picture of universal significance and deep fascination. Black Saturday was a many-headed monster in whose wake stories of grief, heroism and desolation erupted all over the state of Victoria.
This is a book about the monster—and the heroism of those who confronted it.
About the author
Adrian Hyland
Adrian Hyland is the award-winning author of Diamond Dove and Gunshot Road. He lives in St Andrews, north-east of Melbourne, and teaches at LaTrobe University.
A Short History of Christianity – Geoffrey Blainey
A Short History of Christianity
Shortlist year: 2012
Shortlist category: Non-fiction
Published by: Penguin Random House
For 2000 years, Christianity has had a varying but immense influence on world history. Who better, then, than Geoffrey Blainey, author of the best-selling Short History of the World and one of Australia's most accomplished historians, to bring us a history of this world-changing religion.
A Short History of Christianity vividly describes many of the significant players in the religion's rise and fall through the ages, from Jesus himself to Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, Francis Xavier, John Wesley and even the Beatles, who claimed to be 'more popular than Jesus'. Blainey takes us into the world of the mainstream worshippers – the housewives, the stonemasons – and traces the rise of the critics of Christ and his followers.
With his characteristic curiosity and storytelling skill, Blainey considers Christianity's central place in world history. Will it remain in the centre? As Blainey observes in his eminently readable account, the story of Christianity is one of many ups and downs.
About the author
Geoffrey Blainey
Geoffrey Blainey is one of Australia's most significant and popular historians. He has written forty books including The Tyranny of Distance, Triumph of the Nomads, A Shorter History of Australia, Black Kettle and Full Moon, and the bestselling A Short History of the World.
In 2000 Professor Blainey was the recipient of Australia's highest honour, Companion in the Order of Australia (AC). He is listed by the National Trust as a 'Living Treasure'.
