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2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards winners, shortlistees and judges

The winners, shortlistees and judges of the 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

2022 judges

Fiction and poetry panel

Geoffrey Lehmann received the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry in 2015 for his 'PoeMs 1957–2014' published by UWAP. He was the first Australian poet published by Faber & Faber, with his book, 'Spring Forest' being short-listed for the T S Eliot Prize in 1994. His first book of poetry, 'The Ilex Tree', a joint book with Les Murray, was published by ANU Press in 1965. He co-edited with Robert Gray three anthologies of Australian poetry, including the 1090 page 'Australian Poetry Since 1788' published by UNSW Press and one of the 'Economist's' best books of 2011. Starting in the early 1960s he was a reviewer of novels and poetry for 'The Bulletin', then for other Australian newspapers. He has been a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, chairman of The Australian Tax Research Foundation and a member of various federal government bodies.

Peter Craven is a literary and culture critic. He writes extensively for the 'Murdoch', 'Fairfax Press' and the 'Saturday Paper' on the widest range of matters, sometimes writing op-ed as well as writing about literature, theatre, film and television. He began the literary magazine 'Scripsi' with Michael Heyward and was subsequently the founding editor of 'Quarterly Essay' and of the Black Inc. annual 'Best of Anthologies' (essays, fiction and poetry). He was on the Board of Australian Book Review, has appeared in lists of public intellectuals and won the Geraldine Pascall Award for Criticism. He probably writes more journalism on literary and related matter than anyone else in the country and will sometimes review political and historical books. He also regularly writes pieces about Christmas and Easter. He describes himself as a highbrow hack. His work has occasionally appeared in the 'Times Literary Supplement' and 'London Review of Books'.

Stephen Romei is a journalist, writer, editor and critic. He is a former literary editor of The Australian and is a film critic on that newspaper.

Associate Professor Sandra Phillips is Wakka Wakka and Gooreng Gooreng. She is Associate Dean (Indigenous Engagement) at The University of Queensland in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and is an internationally-recognised scholar of Indigenous literature. Prior to her career as an academic, she trained and worked editorially with Magabala Books and the University of Queensland Press, later managing Aboriginal Studies Press. Associate Professor Phillips is published in peer-reviewed and diverse outlets and is a sought-after public speaker.

Caroline Overington is 'The Weekend Australian's' Literary Editor. She is a two-time winner of the Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism, a winner of the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the author of fifteen books. Her examination of the Australian Wheat Board's oil-for-food scandal, 'Kickback', won the Blake Dawson Prize for Literature, and her study of the execution of a mother of seven, Louisa Collins, at Sydney's Darlinghurst Goal, 'Last Woman Hanged', won the Davitt Prize. She is also a judge of the Vogel prize for fiction.

Children's and young adult literature panel

James Roy has served as a judge on both the young adult and children's category panels for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Mr Roy is an author who has written a number of critically acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction for young people, including two Children's Book Council of Australia Honour Books and six Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Books. He has twice won the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, as well as the Golden Inky in Australia's only teenage choice awards and the 2010 Western Australian Premier's Book Award for young adult literature.

Demet Divaroren was born in Adana, Turkey, and migrated to Australia with her family when she was six months old. She is the author of 'Living on Hope Street', which won the 2018 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Writing for Young Adults and was shortlisted for the 2018 Prime Minister's Literary Awards in the Young Adult Literature category. Ms Divaroren is the co-editor of the CBCA shortlisted 'Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia anthology'. Her writing has appeared in 'Griffith Review', 'The Age Epicure', 'The Big Issue', 'Island Magazine', 'From the Outer' and 'Best Summer Stories'. Ms Divaroren appears as a panellist, guest speaker and workshop leader at literary festivals, universities and schools across Melbourne.

Erica Wagner is an artist, publisher and creative consultant to storytellers. She has edited many ground-breaking and award-winning books for children and young adults for over thirty years, starting out with Penguin Books Australia in 1988, establishing a children's list for Duffy & Snellgrove in 1999, and working at Allen & Unwin from 2000–2020. The first children's book editor to receive the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship in 1999, she was awarded the Dromkeen Medal in 2017 and the Australian Book Industry's Pixie O'Harris Award in 2021. A co-director of Twelve Panels Press, Ms Wagner mentors writers and artists developing picture books and works as a publishing project manager and consultant for a number of Australian publishers.

Paula Kelly Paull has a background in education, community development, reading and literacy promotion, as well as library service leadership, development and management. She has worked in local, state and national government, including the State Library of Victoria where she managed the Centre for Youth Literature and life-wide reading and learning projects. In 2018–2020 Ms Paull was a Board Director of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). Holding senior Library and Community development roles Ms Paull has championed a range of highly innovative and impactful reading, library and literacy projects. She is a passionate advocate of the power of reading in people's lives and helped establish both the National Year of Reading in 2012, and the Australian Children's Laureate program. She is a Churchill Fellow; a Barrett Reid Scholarship recipient furthering her work in early literacy with vulnerable parents; and was highly commended for the Dromkeen Librarian's Award for strategic engagement of young people in libraries. Ms Paull has been involved in the development of numerous award-winning libraries that focus on sustainability, community engagement and lifelong reading and learning. Ms Paull is currently Leader Growth and Development with Raeco—Australia's leading Library and Learning spaces supplier.

Dr Anthony Eaton is associate professor of Creative Writing at the University of Canberra. He has been writing for a wide range of audiences since the late 1990s. He has published eleven novels, has twice won the Western Australian Premier's Literary Award for young adult fiction, and twice been awarded an Honour Book award by the Children's Book Council of Australia. His 'Darklands Trilogy' were shortlisted and awarded in the Aurealis Awards for Australian Speculative Fiction. His works have also featured on the International Youth Library's annual 'White Ravens' catalogue of significant international children's books.

In addition to writing, during the last few years Dr Eaton has been concentrating on applied research on the positive impact of creativity and creative practice upon trauma recovery and resilience building.

Non-fiction and Australian history panel

Professor Chris Dixon is Professor of History and Dean of Macquarie University's School of Social Sciences. After completing his BA (Hons) and MA at the University of Western Australia, he completed his PhD at the University of New South Wales. His first two books focused on nineteenth-century American history. Subsequently, Professor Dixon has published widely on the social and cultural dimensions of war; his current projects focus on the Korean War, and on American servicemen on R&R in Australia during the Vietnam War. Prior to arriving at Macquarie in 2016, Professor Dixon held appointments at the University of Sydney, Massey University, the University of Newcastle, and the University of Queensland. Professor Dixon has served two terms as President of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association, as well as President of the International Society for Cultural History. He has been the recipient of grants from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Grant, and in 2016 he held the Fulbright Scholarship in Australian-U.S. Alliance Studies.

Chris Mitchell AO is a media writer for 'The Australian' and retired newspaper editor. He received an AO in 2019 for services to journalism, the media industry and to Aboriginal education. He is an ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation. He has served on several academic business and journalism boards, the Queensland Events Corporation Board, the Queensland Police Community Liaison Board and was Chairman of Media Team Australia, a community liaison business for NGOs wanting to learn media skills.

Mr Mitchell began his career in 1973 at 'The Telegraph' in Brisbane and worked at 'The Daily Telegraph' and 'The Australian Financial Review' before being appointed editor of 'The Australian' in 1992. He became editor in chief of Queensland Newspapers in 1995 where he edited 'The Courier-Mail' and oversaw the 'Sunday-Mail', the 'Gold Coast Bulletin', 'The Cairns Post' and 'The Townsville Daily Bulletin'. He returned to Sydney in 2002 as editor in chief of 'The Australian', 'The Weekend Australian' and all the paper's colour magazines. He retired in December 2015.

Troy Bramston is a senior writer and columnist with 'The Australian' newspaper. He is a best-selling author or editor of 11 books, including 'Bob Hawke: Demons and Destiny' (2022), 'Robert Menzies: The Art of Politics' (2019) and 'Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader' (2016). Mr Bramston co-authored 'The Truth of the Palace Letters' (2020) and 'The Dismissal' (2015) with Paul Kelly. He is currently writing a biography of Bob Hawke . He was a co-winner of the Australian Book Industry Award, finalist for the Walkley Award and shortlisted for the National Biography Award. Mr Bramston was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 for services to the centenary of federation commemorations.

Dr Deborah Hope is an Honorary Postdoctoral Associate at Macquarie University, Sydney. She has a PhD in Ancient History, a Master of Arts (Ancient History) and a Bachelor of Arts (Communication). Dr Hope is a former literary editor of 'The Australian', former editor of 'The Weekend Australian's Review' (dedicated to the arts, books and ideas), and was founding editor of 'Editor' ('The Australian's' weekly digest of international affairs). In her earlier journalism career, Dr Hope worked for 'The Sydney Morning Herald', 'The Bulletin' and 'The Australian' in Sydney, Canberra and Washington DC as a reporter, senior feature writer, commentator and columnist.

Professor Gail Pearson is an academic lawyer and historian. She writes on commercial law, financial services law and the nineteenth century. Her publishers include Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Before teaching law, she taught Australian and Asian history. As a Commonwealth scholar she moved from Brisbane to New Delhi where she wrote on women and nationalism in Mumbai. She has founded academic associations, been president of the International Association of Consumer Law, a member of various advisory and compliance bodies, and is a board member of Consumers' Federation of Australia. She consults nationally and internationally. Professor Pearson is currently reading 'Kolyma Stories.'

On this page

Fiction

Red Heaven, Nicolas Rothwell

WINNER: Red Heaven, Nicolas Rothwell

Red Heaven

Nicolas Rothwell

Shortlist year: 2022
Shortlist category: Fiction
Published by: Text Publishing

‘Red Heaven’ is the story of a child’s journey to adulthood, his loss of those he loves and his fixing of them in memory. It begins in the late 1960s in Switzerland, as the boy’s ideas about life are being shaped by two rival influences.

‘Red Heaven’ is about the people who make us what we are: how they come into our lives, affect us, then depart the stage. This fiction, alive to the elusive beauties and sadnesses of the world, is Nicolas Rothwell’s finest achievement.

Nicolas Rothwell

Nicolas Rothwell lives in Far North Queensland and is a former foreign correspondent. His award-winning books include ‘The Red Highway’, ‘Belomor’ and, most recently, ‘Quicksilver’. ‘Belemor’ and ‘Quicksilver’ were both awarded by the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Judges’ comments

Nicolas Rothwell’s ‘Red Heaven’ is a dazzling novel for the ages. Set mainly in the 1960s upheaval in Eastern Europe, it is as relevant today as it would have been then. It is an echoing reminder that history is the past, present and future. It is a romantic, dramatic, intelligent, cultured, political, cinematic, and, above all, human story that centres on the people who love us and who we love in return, regardless of the cost. It shows, via the main character, a parentless boy who becomes a solitary man, how deeply we are formed by the people closest to us.

Devotion, Hannah Kent

Devotion, Hannah Kent

Devotion

Hannah Kent

Shortlist year: 2022
Shortlist category: Fiction
Published by: Pan Macmillan Australia: Picador

Prussia, 1836
Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature – she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity . . . until she meets Thea.

Ocean, 1838
The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God’s law and at odds with their King’s order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne’s heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break.
The whale passed. The music faded.

South Australia, 1838
A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible . . . is devotion.

Hannah Kent

Hannah Kent’s first novel, the international bestseller, ‘Burial Rites’ (2013), was translated into over 30 languages and won the Australian Book Industry Awards – Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, the Australian Booksellers Association – Nielsen Bookdata Bookseller’s Choice Award, the Victorian Premier’s People’s Choice Award and the Fellowship of Australian Writers Christina Stead Award. It is currently being adapted for film by Sony TriStar. Hannah’s second novel, ‘The Good People’ (2016), was also translated into many languages and is currently being adapted for film by Aquarius Productions.

Judges’ comments

Hannah Kent’s ‘Devotion’ traces life in three parts through the eyes of Hanne. Religious bigotry at home (Prussia 1836) sees Old Lutherans – the Nussbaums, take to the seas (Ocean 1838) escaping persecution. South Australia 1838 was sold to them as a new start. Kent’s characters are always in place, the families, the land – its soil and trees, the animals – domesticated then wild, vividly evoked. Devotion is rooted in place and ethereal in rendition, it is the language of sound, light, and love that stays long after reading. Devotion between Hanne and Thea survives death and through Hanne’s spirit form we have panoptic vision of the colony encountering the original people – the Peramangk, without whom many of the newcomers would have died. There is magic here too. ‘Devotion’ demands attention and surrendering to it brings immense reward.

Night Blue, Angela O’Keeffe

Night Blue, Angela O’Keeffe

Night Blue

Angela O’Keeffe

Shortlist year: 2022

Shortlist category: Fiction

Published by: Transit Lounge

Potent, haunting and lyrical, Night Blue is a debut novel like no other, a narrative largely told in the voice of the painting Blue Poles. It is a truly original and absorbing approach to revisiting Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner as artists and people, as well as a realigning our ideas around the cultural legacy of Whitlam’s purchase of Blue Poles in 1973.

It is also the story of Alyssa, and a contemporary relationship, in which Angela O’Keeffe immerses us in the essential power of art to change our personal lives and, by turns, a nation.

Moving between New York and Australia with fluid ease, Night Blue is intimate and tender, yet surprisingly dramatic. It is a glorious exploration of how art must never be undervalued.

Angela O’Keeffe

Angela O’Keeffe grew up on a farm in South East Queensland and now lives in Sydney. She completed a Master of Arts in Writing at University of Technology Sydney and has had short stories published in literary journals. Night Blue is her first book.

Judges’ comments

Angela O’Keeffe had a bold idea, to tell the story of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles from the perspective not of those who purchased or indeed gaze upon it, but that of the painting itself. It was unquestionably risky, and in our view, she has succeeded brilliantly.

O’Keeffe brings the artwork, Blue Poles, to glorious life in ‘Night Blue’ inviting the reader to journey with the masterpiece from its first home on the floor of an old barn in Long Island, New York, across the seas to Australia. It is a triumph of her own imagination, and an invitation to our own.

Purchased for a record price in 1973, Blue Poles generated much controversy and debate about art and cultural life in Australia, at a time of political and creative tumult. Today, the painting is considered both beautiful and tremendously satisfying; something to devour. So, too, this slim novel, in which O’Keeffe takes on important themes including the disturbing behaviour of famous artists across history; the Dismissal of the Whitlam government by the Governor General; and the purpose and the value of art. Blue Poles learns, as it journeys, much about itself; we learn, in this novel, as much about the country we once were, and still hope to be.

The Hands of Pianists, Stephen Downes

The Hands of Pianists, Stephen Downes

The Hands of Pianists

Stephen Downes

Shortlist year: 2022

Shortlist category: Fiction

Published by: Fomite

A neurotic freelance writer aims to prove that pianos kill elite pianists. For decades, he has grappled with the guilt that followed an accident in which he severed his talented sister’s fingers, ending her promising career at the keyboard. His investigations centre on the violent deaths at 31 of three great pianists, his detective work taking him from Melbourne to Geelong and Sydney, to the south of France, London, Sussex, and the Czech Republic.

Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes’s short story ‘Last Meal’ won the 2020 United Kingdom Fiction Factory’s prize, and five of his recent stories have been longlisted and shortlisted in prestigious UK competitions, including the Bridport and Fish prizes. A few of his food-themed non-fiction books have won Australian and international awards. A lifelong writer and journalist, he reviewed restaurants weekly over many years for some of Australia’s top newspapers, including The Australian Financial Review. Salaried at The Age, he was a section editor and leader and feature writer. He covered a Middle-East war for Agence France-Presse and a Pacific uprising for The Age.

Judges’ comments

Stephen Downes’ ‘The Hands of Pianists’ is an extraordinary piece of fiction which rehearses the shadows and startling insights of a quest to fathom the disturbing hypothesis of the talented pianist as the victim of a predestined doom. The book has a brilliant sense of darkness and an irresistible dramatic power. It is manifestly influenced by the great German re-animator of the actual W.G. Sebald but Downes’ use of Sebald’s fictional idiom and strategies is something he makes his own with a virtuoso assurance that actually brings to mind the great seventeenth century dramatists who were the peers of Shakespeare because they wore his influence like a glove from which they could achieve mighty things. ‘The Hands of Pianists’ is a patently mad book by a writer of the very first rank who can conjure multitudes of felt realities even as his narrator probes the darkest and most deranged reaches of self-scrutiny. This is a debut novel by a man of 74 who has spent a lifetime writing with great élan and authority about food. It may be far from everyday taste but it reminds us of why Thomas Bernhard and WG Sebald are among the greater writers since World War II because of the ways in which it equals them.

Dark as Last Night, Tony Birch

Dark as Last Night, Tony Birch

Dark as Last Night

Tony Birch

Shortlist year: 2022

Shortlist category: Fiction

Published by: University of Queensland Press

Dark as Last Night’ confirms, once again, that Tony Birch is a master of the short story. These exceptional stories capture the importance of human connection at pivotal moments in our lives, whether those occur because of the loss of a loved one or the uncertainties of childhood.

In this collection we witness a young girl struggling to protect her mother from her father’s violence, two teenagers clumsily getting to know one another by way of a shared love of music, and a man mourning the death of his younger brother, while beset by memories and regrets from their shared past.

Throughout this powerful collection, Birch’s concern for the humanity of those who are often marginalised or overlooked shines bright.

Tony Birch

Tony Birch is an Indigenous author of three novels: the bestselling ‘The White Girl’, winner of the 2020 NSW Premier’s Award for Indigenous Writing, and shortlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Prize; ‘Ghost River’, winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; and ‘Blood’, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2012. He is also the author of ‘Shadowboxing’ and four short story collections. In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. Tony Birch is also an activist, historian and essayist.

Judges’ comments

‘Dark as Last Night’, a volume of short stories by an Aboriginal writer about marginal lives and working class people is likely to become an Australian classic. Tony Birch has been described as “more like Chekhov, than Carver”. He is sometimes brutal, sometimes tender, and always empathetic. Half in love with most of his characters, he is sharply insightful about those he doesn’t love: the husband and father who beats his wife and daughter; or the neighbourhood kids who steal a child’s much loved “shining red dragster bike”, and smash it up after they are confronted. Birch has a wonderful ability to bring his stories to life with a bizarre but telling detail. A short, pencil thin woman, known as “Little Red” befriends the young female narrator of the title story “Dark as Last Night”. Little Red recommends smoking to her young friend – “Cigarettes calm you down”. She lives in a house, where a previous inhabitant papered the walls with old newspapers, stretching back decades. The landlord had offered to paint over them. She said no. She tells the narrator why: “I now have all these stories from around the world. They give me company.” These stories will give us company for a long time. Birch is a master story teller.

Children's literature

The Boy and the Elephant, Freya Blackwood

The Boy and the Elephant by Freya Blackwood

The Boy and the Elephant by Freya Blackwood
Mina and the Whole Wide World cover

WINNER: Mina and the Whole Wide World, Sherryl Clark

Published by: University of Queensland Press

Mina wants her own bedroom more than anything else in the whole wide world. And it's almost ready! Just one more lick of sunny yellow paint and it's hers.

But when Mina's parents take in an unexpected guest, they give her room away. At first, Mina is too upset to speak. She doesn't care that this new boy, Azzami, needs a place to stay.

At school, the other kids call Azzami names, and Mina wishes he'd stand up for himself. Then she sees his drawings, and for the first time really thinks about the life of the quiet boy in front of her.

Here is a story about finding friendship where you least expect it and making room for everyone across this big wide world.

About the author

Sherryl Clark

Sherryl Clark is a writer, editor and writing teacher with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and a PhD in Creative Writing. She has been writing poems and stories for children for over twenty years. Her verse novel, 'Farm Kid', won the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Children's Books in 2005 and 'Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!)' was an Honour Book in the 2008 CBCA Awards. Sherryl worked in community writing for many years and taught professional writing and editing at Victoria University TAFE for over two decades. She now writes full-time.

About the illustrator

Briony Stewart

Briony Stewart was born in Perth back when Ninja Turtles were 'the coolest'. With a father in Zoology and an artistic mother, Briony decided she was either going to grow up to be a traveling entomologist or a famous artist like Picasso.

Briony's first book, 'Kumiko and the Dragon' published soon after she graduated won the 2007 Aurealis Award for Children's Short Fiction. Since then, Briony has received an arts grant for artists under 25 to develop as a children's author and illustrator with the May Gibbs Children's Literature Trust in Melbourne, has presented at libraries and festivals and has held three successful exhibitions of her illustrated work.

Judges' comments

This deftly crafted verse novel tells a powerful story with depth and authenticity. We see and hear this story through Mina's eyes and voice, a young girl who can't wait to move into her own room. Her disappointment when her parents tell her that her long-awaited room will now be inhabited by a refugee boy, is acute, and stops Mina from engaging with Azzami. But gradually her resentment changes to curiosity as she starts to see things from Azzami's point of view and wonders about his life and what has brought him here.

Sherryl Clark evokes Mina's family life, her parents' values and attitudes, and Mina's emotional struggles as she faces a situation where she needs to act, to right a wrong.

Mina's voice is poetic and well-pitched and Briony Stewart's illustrations are a highlight, using marvelously expressive body language and unusual perspectives to eloquently express an important theme of this book: that pictures can be a profound form of communication when words are too hard to find.

This is an outstanding example of a verse novel for younger readers; a slim yet satisfying story that opens up a world of ideas with plenty of space for children to imagine, empathise and ponder complex issues and feelings.

Exit Through the Gift Shop by Maryam Master, Astrid Hicks

Exit Through the Gift Shop by Maryam Master, Astrid Hicks

Exit Through the Gift Shop by Maryam Master, Astrid Hicks
Common Wealth by Gregg Dreise

Common Wealth by Gregg Dreise

Common Wealth by Gregg Dreise
Dragon Skin by Karen Foxle

Dragon Skin by Karen Foxle

Dragon Skin by Karen Foxle

Young adult literature

Still Alive: Notes from Australia's immigration detention system by Safdar Ahmed

Still Alive: Notes from Australia's immigration detention system by Safdar Ahmed

Still Alive: Notes from Australia's immigration detention system by Safdar Ahmed
'Sugar,' Carly Nugent

WINNER: The Gaps by Leanne Hall

The Gaps by Leanne Hall
'Ask No Questions', Eva Collins

100 Remarkable Feats by Xander Maze, by Clayton Zane Comber

100 Remarkable Feats by Xander Maze, by Clayton Zane Comber
'The Upwelling', Lystra Rose

Tell Me Why for Young Adults by Archie Roach

Tell Me Why for Young Adults by Archie Roach
'What We All Saw,' Mike Lucas

Tiger Daughter by Rebecca Lim

Tiger Daughter by Rebecca Lim

Non-fiction

Another Day in the Colony, Chelsea Watego

Another Day in the Colony by Chelsea Watego

Another Day in the Colony by Chelsea Watego
'Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life', Brigitta Olubus

WINNER: Rogue forces: An explosive insiders' account of Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan by Mark Willacy

Rogue forces: An explosive insiders' account of Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan by Mark Willacy
'We Come With This Place', Debra Dank

Title Fight: How the Yindjibardni battled and defeated a mining giant, by Paull Cleary

Title Fight: How the Yindjibardni battled and defeated a mining giant, by Paull Cleary
'Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong', Louisa Lim

The Case that Stopped a Nation: The Archibald Prize controversy of 1944

The Case that Stopped a Nation: The Archibald Prize controversy of 1944
A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions Thom van Dooren

Puff Piece by John Safran

A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions

Thom van Dooren

Shortlist year: 2023

Shortlist category: Non-fiction

Published by: MIP

In this time of extinctions, the humble snail rarely gets a mention, and yet snails are disappearing faster than any other species. In A World in a Shell, Thom van Dooren offers a collection of snail stories from Hawai’i—once home to more than 750 species of land snails, almost two-thirds of which are now gone. Following snail trails through forests, laboratories, museums, and even a military training facility, and meeting with scientists and Native Hawaiians, van Dooren explores ongoing processes of ecological and cultural loss as they are woven through with possibilities for hope, care, mourning, and resilience. 

Thom van Dooren

Thom van Dooren is a field philosopher and writer based at the University of Sydney where he is Deputy Director of the Sydney Environment Institute. He is the author of numerous books and essays on extinction, biodiversity, and people’s relationships with threatened species and places.

Judges’ comments

Coming at a moment when we are beginning to comprehend the realities of mass extinction that we face with climate crisis, van Dooren’s sensitive work calls to attention the importance of recognising the specificity of each loss, and particularly of species little acknowledged in the world view.

Focusing on the wondrous array of Hawai’i’s land snails – and recognising the extinctions already in progress amongst the gastropods there and elsewhere – van Dooren’s work brings into focus the complexity of snail life, and makes clear all that would be implicated in their loss. There is beautiful detail in this work, such as the contemplation of snail communication via slime trails, and joy offered in moments of encounter, as in his documentation of the Kānaka Maoli knowledge of snails singing.

Engaging in a thorough study of snail life via the histories which complicate their island being, including colonial incursions and collecting, and moving all the way through to contemporary ecological efforts to preserve them, complicated by the presence of the US Defence Force, van Dooren makes clear the entanglements between the snails’ world and our own.

He also shows how, more than simply being a canary in the coalmine for the coming losses we face, the snails demonstrate that climate justice is indelibly entangled with justice for First Nations people. His work speaks poignantly to the need for both, navigating grief, hope and resilience in crisis.

Australian history

WINNER: Semut: The Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo, by Christine Helliwell

WINNER: Semut: The Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo, by Christine Helliwell

WINNER: Semut: The Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo, by Christine Helliwell
Farmers or Hunter Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, by Professor Peter Sutton FASSA, Dr Keryn Walshe

Farmers or Hunter Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, by Professor Peter Sutton FASSA, Dr Keryn Walshe

Farmers or Hunter Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, by Professor Peter Sutton FASSA, Dr Keryn Walshe
Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna

Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna

Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna
White Russians, Red Peril: A Cold War history of migration to Australia, by Sheila Fitzpatrick

White Russians, Red Peril: A Cold War history of migration to Australia, by Sheila Fitzpatrick

White Russians, Red Peril: A Cold War history of migration to Australia, by Sheila Fitzpatrick
Harlem Nights: The secret history of Australia's Jazz Age, by Deirdre O'Connell

Harlem Nights: The secret history of Australia's Jazz Age, by Deirdre O'Connell

Harlem Nights: The secret history of Australia's Jazz Age, by Deirdre O'Connell

Poetry

Human Looking by Andy Jackson

WINNER: Human Looking by Andy Jackson

Human Looking by Andy Jackson
'Harvest Lingo', Lionel Fogarty

Homecoming by Elfie Shiosaki

Homecoming by Elfie Shiosaki
'Exactly As I Am', Rae White

Dancing with Stephen Hawking by John Foulcher

Dancing with Stephen Hawking by John Foulcher
'The Jaguar', Sarah Holland-Batt

Fish Work by Caitlin Maling

Fish Work by Caitlin Maling
'Clean', Scott-Patrick Mitchell

Fifteeners by Jordie Albiston

Clean

Scott-Patrick Mitchell

Shortlist year: 2023

Shortlist category: Poetry
 

Publisher: Upswell Publishing

Our lucent teeth spark the rainbow dark.
Here, we do not use words like love.
Instead, we speak with hands that hold
as shoulders tussle
the roughhouse rougher.
In the absence of daylight,
we are just two young men,
silent save for giggle and shoe scuff:
we do not rouse suspicion when touching.
from ‘Night Orchids’

In this volume, Scott-Patrick Mitchell propels us into the seething mess of the methamphetamine crisis in Australia today. These poems roil and scratch, exploring the precarious life of addiction and its sleep deprivation. From an unsteady and unsavoury life, we are released into the joy of a recovery made through sheer hard work.

Even in the disintegration, the poet points us towards love and carries tenderness every day in memory. Scott-Patrick Mitchell’s decades of spoken-word practice has enabled a fine tuning on the page when, for so many readers, we enter into an alien zone of unknowing.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell

In this volume, Scott-Patrick Mitchell propels us into the seething mess of the methamphetamine crisis in Australia today. These poems roil and scratch, exploring the precarious life of addiction and its sleep deprivation. From an unsteady and unsavoury life, we are released into the joy of a recovery made through sheer hard work.

Even in the disintegration, the poet points us towards love and carries tenderness every day in memory. Scott-Patrick Mitchell’s decades of spoken-word practice has enabled a fine tuning on the page when, for so many readers, we enter into an alien zone of unknowing.

Judges’ comments

The poems in Clean eschew the sterility and decorum suggested by one meaning of its title. Instead, they map the treacherous and trauma-haunted terrain of addiction and recovery with fearless experimentation and striking compassion.

The voice of these poems has none of the feel of a detached observer or social worker; they dwell instead within desperation, hunger, precarity and marginalisation, giving the reader a visceral sense of the humanity behind the headlines of the methamphetamine crisis.

In its form and use of language, the collection is adventurous and forensic. There are lyrics, prose poems, palindromic and textual play, elegies and fragments. But the poems are always aurally captivating, using sound and associative techniques to foreground the bodily and emotional experience of encounter.

In its three sections – “Dirty”, “The Sleep Deprivation Diaries” and “Clean” – Scott-Patrick Mitchell explores not only this unpredictable arc of recovery, but wider themes of homophobic violence, queer joy and sensuality, the climate crisis, masculinity, family and grief.

In this accomplished debut collection, Mitchell has composed a complex, fierce and tender ode to recovery, love and presence.

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We acknowledge the many Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and honour their Elders past and present.

We respect their deep enduring connection to their lands, waterways, and surrounding clan groups since time immemorial. We cherish the richness of First Nations peoples’ artistic and cultural expressions. We are privileged to gather on this Country and to share knowledge, culture and art, now and with future generations.

Art by Jordan Lovegrove