In 1978 the New South Wales Government inaugurated the annual New South Wales Premiers Literary Awards to honour distinguished achievement by Australian writers. The Awards are announced during the Sydney Writers' Festival. Arts NSW (official site) administers the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. 11 prizes ranging in value from $5,000 to $40,000 are offered:
- The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,00)
The UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000)
- The Community Relations Commission Award ($15,000)
- Gleebooks Prize ($10,000)
- The Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction ($40,000)
The Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)
The Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ($30,000)
The Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature ($30,000)
The Play Award ($30,000)
The Script Writing Award ($30,000)
The Biennial Prize for Literary Scholarship ($30,000)
-
-
-
- SEEK Books maintains a stock list of winners back to 2005 if you've missed a book or two that you would like to read. Go to SEEK Books NSW Premiers page>>
Michelle De Kretser's $50,000 Double Glory as Lost Dog Wins 2008 Book of the Year and $40,000 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
Kevin Parker reports-
For more details on winning books and authors on this page click here.
MICHELLE DE KRETSER'S (right) love story about a young Indian-Australian, The Lost Dog, has won both the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year ($10,000) and the prestigious $40,000 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. Ms. De Krester won both prizes in front of shortlisted heavyweight authors, J.M. Coetzee (Diary of a Bad Year), Thomas Keneally (The Widow and Her Hero),Alex Miller (Landscape of Farewell) and highly talented newcomer to literary award world, Courier Mail journalist, Matthew Condon (The Trout Opera) . The two awards earned her a total of $50,000 from a prize pool of $290,000 - up from $137,000 last year.
Ms. De Kretser is no stranger to literary prizes with a previous work, The Hamilton Case, shortlisted for the SA Premier’s Fiction Award and the Victorian Premier’s Award, before winning Regional Winner of the 2004 Commonwealth Prize. The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the inaugural, 2008, Barbara Jefferis Award, but lost out to Rhyll McMaster's Feather Man. Ms. McMaster's novel, about a young wom
an called Sooky, takes us from Brisbane in the 1950s to swinging London in the 1970s, can now add a NSW Premier's prize, the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, to it's list of accomplishments - not a bad effort for a debut
novel from the Southern Highlands based poet turned author.
The formidable Jacob G. Rosenberg (right) won the 2008 Community Relations Commission Award for his book, Sunrise West, a follow-up to the East of Time which won the 2006 Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction. Sunrise West, was recently awarded the 2008 Non-fiction Adelaide Festival Prize
This years Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40,000) has been won by Tom Griffith's, Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (University of NSW Press Ltd) Tom Griffiths’ Slicing the Silence is a sustained meditation on wildness and landscape, on ice,ecology and story; it is a vivid history of human enterprise and folly at the farthest reaches of culture. Professor Griffiths' book had previously won the 2007 Queensland Premier's Non-fiction Award.
Hobart based Kathryn Lomer's (left) second collection of poetry, Two Kinds of Silence University of Queensland ($30,000). Extraction of Arrows, her first poetry collection, was released in September 2003. Kathryn has previously won the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and the Anne Elder Poetry Award. She was also shortlisted for The John Bray Award for Poetry (Adelaide Festival) in 2004. Link to the Write Stuff featuring some of Kathryn's poems.
Li Cunxin and Anne Spudvilas (illus) are the winners of the 2008 Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ($30,000)for their book The Peasant Prince (Penguin). Originally published as Mao’s Last Dancer, this touching picture book tells the story of an impoverished Chinese boy, Li Cunxin, whose life changes dramatically when he is chosen to study ballet at the Beijing Dance Academy.
The Ethel Turner Prize for Young People' Literature ($15,000) was claimed by James Roy, for Town , another Queensland University Press publication winner at this years award. Set in a fairly typical contemporary Australian town, the lives and issues confronting thirteen young people are explored over the course of a year. Characters are very diverse and speak with their own distinctive voices but Roy skillfully links them and their stories to build up a holistic portrayal of life in a small town through their eyes.
Whilst Tom Keneally's , whose Miles long listed and NSW Premier's shortlisted, the Widow and the Hero has yet to glean a literary prize, was recognised for his not inconsiderable services to literature receiving a special award worth $20,000. His 45-year-career includes two Miles Franklin Awards in the late 1960s and the esteemed Booker Prize in 1982 for Schindler's Ark, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List.
He has written extensively in both fiction and non-fiction on topics including the Irish diaspora, the American Civil War and the Nazi Holocaust.
When he began writing in 1963 there was no literary community in Australia, and he only met other writers through publishers.
"I knew it was more than an industry - it was more magical, it was more imponderable, it was more fantastic than just a job," Mr Keneally told AAP.
He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1983 and has been named an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia.
The 72-year-old attributes the "eclectic" path of his literary career to the perceptions of Australian literary endeavours when he was first getting started.
"There used to be a fool's proposition that you wrote about Australia or you wrote about the world as if Australia wasn't part of the world," he said.
Debra Oswald's, Stories in the Dark won the Play Award. A story about a homeless teenage girl comforting a terrified young boy at night, by telling half-remembered folk stories, was produced by Australian Theatre for Young People and Riverside Theatre Productions.
Following the 2007 precedence of a documentary winning the Script Award(Mabo: Life of an Island Man), Anna Broinowski's Forbidden Lie$ received the Script Writing Award. The script is about serial embezzler and literary fraudster Norma Khouri.
Small Australian independent publisher Brandl and Schlesinger and University of Queensland Press both had two winners in this year's awards. Go you brave darlings!
With Premier Morris Iemma off in China, no doubt to address the human rights concerns of many of his NSW constituents over Tibet etc, Minister for the Arts, the Hon Frank Sartor presented the awards on the night. Congratulations to all the authors and their publishers - the latter need a fair degree of daring do to put-up the dosh in a small and highly competitive market.
Back to top
2008 NSW Premier's Literary Prize Winners Book Descriptions and Judges Comments
2008 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction- Winner and NSW Premier's Book of the Year
Michelle de Kretser (right) ,The Lost Dog Allen & Unwin
Tom Loxley is an Indian-Australian whose family had immigrated to Australia in the mid twentieth-century from India, where his mother’s family were poverty-stricken and culturally adrift Eurasians. Tom is weighed down by an almost crippling sense of responsibility for his mother as she ages. He watches as she slides into infirmity, battling with confusion and trying to hold onto what dignity remains to her. His family history clings to Tom in the bitter-sweet relationship of mother and son. It is the backdrop against which he embarks upon a friendship with a flamboyant and eccentric artist.
The Lost Dog is a love story with a difference. At the centre of Tom’s affections is Nelly Zhang, a successful artist who lives in an inner city warehouse. Yet Nelly holds Tom at bay; she is not all that she appears to be. There are dark secrets in her life. Her past remains a mystery that slowly unravels in the course of the narrative. This is a novel about contemporary multicultural Australia. It moves Australian literature into a new phase by taking cultural difference and multiplicity as a given in contemporary Australian life. It confidently portrays a world of cultural hybridity but without being programmatic or pedagogical. The complex family backgrounds of the two central characters inform their actions, their emotions, their art and their general identity. Yet the details of their cultural difference are stitched into the narrative fabric of the story so intricately that they emerge only in passing, so to speak, as fleeting but telling glimpses. Both characters are articulate, ironic and self-reflexive. Although they seem very much part of the urban world they live in, they nonetheless have traces of feeling ‘native yet foreign’; their family histories set them apart from mainstream Australians. The Lost Dog deals with the complexity and effects of immigrant lives in a subtle and unselfconscious way. It explores the effects of the global movement of people, images and objects which ushered in the modern world. Nelly’s artwork maps the seductions, fascinations, and cultural collisions of an urban consumerist lifestyle.
The story is elegantly and adroitly structured within the frame of a week during which time Tom’s beloved dog goes missing. His anxiety over the whereabouts of the dog is interleaved with a gradual peeling back of the layers of mystery and intrigue in Nelly’s life. It is a story told with an impressive command of its craft and a deft, economic style. It combines irony and a beautiful turn of phrase with an astute observation of the complicated drives of human nature.
About the author
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Having studied French at Melbourne University, she spent a year teaching in Montpellier before doing an MA in Paris. She has worked for many years as an editor at Lonely Planet Publications and was responsible for setting up their French series. Her first novel, The Rose Grower, was published to great acclaim around the world and was a critical and commercial success in Australia. The Hamilton Case was shortlisted for the SA Premier’s Fiction Award, the Victorian Premier’s Award, and was announced the Regional Winner of the 2004 Commonwealth Prize.
Michelle de Kretser talks to Robert Dessaix for The Book Show about , The Lost Dog.
Profile of Michell De Kretser 'My life and a dog' Sydney Morning Hearald by Fiona Gruber
Back to top
2008 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000)
Rhyll McMaster (right), Feather Man (Brandl & Schlesinger)
Feather Man is the story of Sooky, a young woman who survives childhood abuse and comes into her own as an artist. It is, however, so much more than a simple coming of age tale. The opening, in the backyard of a suburban Brisbane house, is unforgettably monstrous and real, capturing the child’s view of abuse with a truth that shakes the reader, never allowing us to settle comfortably into the story. We follow Sooky as she grows up, moving from man to man, struggling to paint and struggling to become herself as she encounters a host of appalling and fantastic people, all of whom ring absolutely true. At the centre, Sooky herself is difficult, flawed, frequently hard to like, but very much alive.
This is a novel written with a poet’s love of language. The prose dances and twists out of the darkness of Sooky’s childhood and into her emergence as an adult. Sooky sees the world in a completely idiosyncratic and unconventional way, never allowing us to paint her as a stereotyped victim of abuse. McMaster has done what only the best writers do – she has used the richness of language to create new layers of story, giving us a novel that is witty, disturbing and completely alive.
Back to top
2008 Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction ($40,000)
Tom Griffiths, Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (University of NSW Press Ltd)
Tom Griffiths’ (left Slicing the Silence is a sustained meditation on wildness and landscape, on ice, ecology and story; it is a vivid history of human enterprise and folly at the farthest reaches of culture. It is an impeccably researched, deeply felt, and elegantly made work of literary non-fiction, the outstanding work among this year’s entries.
A striking feature of Griffiths’ book is its braiding together of historical essays and the author’s personal narrative. By this means, Griffiths casts his narrator (himself as both journeyer and historian) in the narrative, without stealing the show from the other dramatis personae; it gives the reader entry into the book’s wandering and reflective narrative through identification, even intimacy, with the teller; and it animates what might otherwise have been a detached chronicle.
Through this weave of personal and public histories, of intimacy and detachment, Griffiths evokes ‘the meditative dimensions of voyaging’: the book’s chapters flow like the tides, they depart and sometimes return like parties of expeditioners and penguins, from the quiet meridian struck and held in the diary entries. Each chapter explores intriguing themes (solitude, sex, time, politics, weather, silence, climate change), but the reader journeys not just through ideas and memories; the landscape itself (its form and its ‘palpable’ silence) is forcefully present from beginning to end.
In the Antarctic, the landscape is sufficiently attenuated and exacting to render the human quest for belonging on earth a matter not merely of spirit but of survival against steep odds. It’s easy to die here, beautifully or horribly. But there are things one can learn only here, if one can just stay alive. The ice teaches those who visit it the limits of their physical and spiritual selves, for instance, and the limits and uses of culture - how much, in the end, we depend on the environment for our very lives and their sustaining stories.
The importance of Slicing the Silence does not lie in the intrinsic merit of the historical tales Griffiths tells, or in the philosophical vision he delicately and astutely draws from them, but in the way he does the telling. Phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, the book is beautifully voiced and skillfully told. Griffiths’ book does the work that art does; it engages us and helps us see the world and our selves within it freshly.
Kenneth Slessor Prize for poetry ($30,000)
Kathryn Lomer, Two Kinds of Silence
Occasionally one is lucky enough to encounter a book which emphatically transports the reader. Kathryn Lomer’s second collection of poetry is largely set in Tasmania. A tangible immediacy resonates throughout the book - the reader feels the sand, mosses and the raw green silk. There is a marvellous weight of imagery here which threads through the book giving a visceral vitality to the pages – 'the river slurs', 'they carve three cubic feet of air / into slices of meaning’, the ‘life scar’, ‘sky's buzz’. This book ranges freely from sharply drawn landscapes to milking shed patois and notably a series of intensely realised personal interiors. There is frank anger and generous empathy as Lomer gives form to a life, a world. Two Kinds of Silence is a linguistically rich and honest exploration that will enliven all who read it.
This was a year of many impressive books: some by established figures and many with a number of superb poems. The judges chose this title for its consistency, bravery, the unwrapped wonder and stylistic dexterity. If you think poetry is unable to surprise and satisfy, then this will change your mind.
2008 Patricia Wrightson Prize for children’s literature ($30,000)
Li Cunxin (authors website>>) & Anne Spudvilas (illustrators website>>), The Peasant Prince (Penguin Group [Australia]) -
T
his is your one chance. You have your secret dreams. Follow them! Make them come true…
Originally published as Mao’s Last Dancer, this touching picture book tells the story of an impoverished Chinese boy, Li Cunxin (pronounced “Lee Schwin Sing”), whose life changes dramatically when he is chosen to study ballet at the Beijing Dance Academy.
Motivated by his father’s tale of a frog who escapes from a deep, dark well into the light of a new life, Li overcomes fear, uncertainty, sadness and ‘an ocean of loneliness’ to eventually become a world renowned dancer. Anne Spudvilas’ delicate and haunting images draw on the traditions of Chinese brush painting to add beauty and authenticity to the narrative.
Told simply, there are many themes addressed – not least the importance of courage and determination and, of course, the importance of believing that ‘Nothing is impossible!’ And so the little frog did get out of the well, but he never forgot where he came from. Li Cunxin
ABC George Negus interview with Li Cunxin>>
Back to top
2008 Ethel Turner Prize for young people’s literature ($30,000)
James Roy, Town
Although written for teenage and young adult readers, James Roy’s memorable and masterful collection of thirteen short stories has the potential to reach a much wider audience.
Set in a fairly typical contemporary Australian town, the lives and issues confronting thirteen young people are explored over the course of a year. Characters are very diverse and speak with their own distinctive voices but Roy skilfully links them and their stories to build up a holistic portrayal of life in a small town through their eyes.
Important themes like love, loss, family relationships, starting a new job, and leaving home are reflected through the eyes of these young Australians. Through understated prose, Roy invites the reader to share their everyday dilemmas. We experience their joys and their grief and can’t help but be moved by the hope and humour with which they face the challenges of coming to terms with the world.
2008 -The Biennial Prize for Literary Scholarship ($30,000)
William Christie, Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Literary Life (Literary Lives)
(Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, UK) [book link to amazon.com as horrifically expensive in OZ - though your local book store might help]
It is remarkable that there is anything new to say about the canonical figure of Coleridge. But in this ‘literary life’ William Christie says it. The interaction between the life and writing is lucidly examined with particular emphasis on Coleridge’s works in both poetry and prose, especially the pivotal Biographia Literaria. There is much innovation in Christie’s use of manuscript material, and also in his approach to Coleridge’s oral works, notably his many public lectures.
At least three impressive features of the biography underline its originality. Christie provides a rich and full analysis of the paradoxes of Coleridge’s positions regarding philosophy, religion, society and art, and adds to it a coherent developmental account of them which exposes contradictions without minimizing the importance and occasional visionary greatness of the poet’s thinking. Coleridge is shown, convincingly for perhaps the first time, to have achieved eventually, despite his many changes of mind and heart, a unified world view. Secondly, Christie places Coleridge’s work within a precisely understood view of his society, with its emerging free enterprise, market oriented, literary culture and new non-elitist readership. In speaking out against crass commercialism, he is viewed as ahead of his time. Finally, focusing selectively on the works, Christie reveals the poet as a lively, humorous person, loved by many of his contemporaries, a supplement to the famous biographer Richard Holmes’ antidote to two hundred years of scholarship that have cumulatively and gradually desiccated, in some respects, the study of Coleridge and his works.
The inclusion of this study in the prestigious Palgrave ‘Literary Lives’ series has been vindicated by a brilliant, even dazzling contribution to international literary criticism, which indicates possible new directions for specialist studies of the Romantics, and gives, through a sureness and lightness of touch, pleasurable access to non-specialist readers.
Community Relations Commission Award ($15,000)
Jacob G. Rosenberg, Sunrise West (Brandl & Schlesinger Pty Ltd)
Jacob Rosenberg’s Sunrise West,is at once a harrowing account of life in Nazi concentration camps and an uplifting narrative about migration, where the difficult journey to rebuild, survive and even flourish is put into stark perspective. This volume continues the story begun in East of Time, mainly focused on his family’s incarceration in the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex where his parents, two sisters andtwo young nieces perished in the first few days, his three years in Italy as a displaced person, and finally his early life in Australia with his beloved wife.
Despite the intensity of the story and the chapter in history that it illuminates, Rosenberg’s autobiography is surprisingly poetic and engaging. Part of the work’s power is in the way it sheds light on the experience of Jewish migrants who arrived in Australia with ‘hope on their lips and doubt in their hearts … to restore the irrestorable, to repair the irreparable’ and who, within a short time, ‘assumed a pivotal place in the emerging multicultural mosaic’ of the nation. Rosenberg’s memoir is haunting and artistically brave. It is an important addition to the canon of both Holocaust literature more widely, and Australian autobiography more specifically.
Back to top
Gleebooks Prize ($10,000)
Kay Anderson, Race and the Crisis of Humanism -(Routledge, UK) book link to Gleebooks
With the publication of Race and the Crisis of Humanism Kay Anderson has given us a book that not only charts the history of Western understanding of what it is that constitutes and signifies our humanness, but one that also takes a central place in the current debate about the relationship between human ‘development’ and nature, and the much contested question of ‘race’. The debate is a longstanding one, and much of the material she brings to construct her argument will be familiar to many readers; but the originality of her thesis lies in the significance she attributes to European discovery of the Australian Aboriginal.
Drawing on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, Anderson makes the trajectory of philosophical, religious and scientific argument over a number of centuries, clear – this is no mean feat. In particular she focuses her discussion on the Enlightenment idea that ‘human potentiality was realised in a movement out of nature’, and that this movement ‘out of nature’ toward ‘civilization’ as understood primarily by creation of community, cultivation of the land and domestication of animals, was paralleled by a process of self-transformation whereby that which was understood to be ‘animal’ as represented by instincts and unregulated passions, was eradicated or repressed in favour of the human capacity to reason.
Anderson suggests that European discovery of the North American Indian was easily enough incorporated into this developmental theory of human movement ‘out of nature’ – there was sufficient evidence to suggest a human separation from animal and nature, but inclusion of subsequent discovery of the Australian Aboriginal proved intractable. Not only was there little evidence upon which to grant ‘humanity’ as based on the definition of remove from nature, neither was there any evidence of ability or desire to do so, and yet it was equally impossible to deny humanity – they were clearly ‘human’.
Anderson claims that it was from this position of incomprehensibility that a ‘race-based’ theory of difference was derived - one that claimed the ‘unimprovability’ or ‘imperfectibility’ of some peoples. She points to the rift that developed between those theorists who supported the idea of humankind as one species whose various stages of development away from nature could be attributed to ‘physical and cultural differences shaped by circumstances’ and those who argued with increasing force and numbers that ‘human physical and cultural differences were intrinsic to different groups of people’ - that is, their place in a hierarchy of human remove from nature was ‘racial’ and fixed.
What is significant then about Anderson’s argument is the central position she gives the Australian Aboriginal in the shift to a racialized understanding of human difference. It has to be said that this book does not make for easy reading, but equally it should be said that given the complexity of the issues, Anderson’s book is gratifyingly cogent and offers an original perspective on the debate.
{editors note: Gleebooks is a great book shop in Sydney. Well worth a visit and supporting}
2008 Play Award ($30,000)
Debra Oswald, Stories in the Dark (Australian Theatre for Young People and Riverside Theatres, Currency Press)
Debra Oswald’s outstanding Stories in the Dark is a beguiling and elegant intertwining of two war-ravaged young lives, with dark, wild, half-remembered folk tales. It is that perhaps unusual thing: an Australian play which is distinctly international in setting, and which, while universal in theme, never generalizes to connect. The playwright’s characterisation is pungent, her narrative lean and pointed. Both are motivated by clear emotional truth. Stories in the Dark is an acute demonstration of universality lying in the specific, wherein a simple tale - a teenage girl tells stories to help a younger boy through the night, and get herself some peace – is deployed by a playwright of penetrating vision and sure craft, to engage with a primal, enduring aspect of human nature: the reconciliation with life’s harsher mysteries - particularly death - via their transformation into stories.
2008 Script Writing Award ($30,000)
Anna Broinowski, Forbidden Lie$ (Liberty Productions Pty Ltd)
The judges wrestled with the decision in the Script category, not just because of the strength of the short list, but because of the question of whether a documentary like Forbidden Lie$ could be said to have ‘literary merit’. It was noted that in a previous year, the Script Award had been given to the documentary Mabo: Life of an Island Man, and so a precedent had been set. Had Anna Broinowski’s work resulted in a book instead of a film, the question of literary merit would have seemed much more straightforward.
Special Award ($20,000) - The Judges comments
T
homas Keneally AO
Thomas Keneally has made a major contribution to Australian literary culture, both in Australia and internationally, for over four decades. He has been extraordinarily productive and versatile as a writer, publishing thirty novels, fourteen books of non fiction, five plays and several screenplays. His works have been published throughout the English-speaking world and in translation. This makes him one of the most prolific and accomplished of Australian writers and one of our most distinguished and well known literary ambassadors.
Keneally’s work has earned him high accolades. He was awarded the Booker Prize in 1982 for Schindler's Ark, later made into the Academy Award-winning film, Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg. He had been shortlisted for this award for three earlier novels - Gossip from the Forest, Confederates and his classic, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, also made into a film by Fred Schepisi. Keneally twice won the Miles Franklin Award for Bring Larks and Heroes (1967) and Three Cheers for the Paraclete (1968). In 1983, he was awarded the Order of Australia for his services to Australian literature and in 1999 he was designated an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust.
Keneally is a fine writer and engaging storyteller, whose work spans a broad sweep of issues, geographies and timeframes. These include Australian history of the colonial and war years, the history of the Irish diaspora, the American civil war, the Nazi Holocaust, Antarctica, Africa, famine, conflict, the refugee experience, race, religion, culture and politics. His passion for social justice shines through it all, as he brings readers face to face with the moral dilemmas and contradictions inherent in everyday life and seeks to broaden our sense of common humanity. As a writer, commentator and ready participant in public forums over many years, Keneally has given voice to critical issues of our time and demonstrated the important role writers can play in society, building respect and understanding within our community and across the world.
It is appropriate that we honour him for his outstanding contribution to Australian literature with the 2008 NSW Premier’s Special Award.
Back to top
2008 Judging panel
The judges for the 2008 NSW Premier’s Literary awards were Mara Moustafine (chair- photo left), Geoffrey Atherden, Georgia Blain, Anne Brewster, Anne Collett, Robyn Ewing, Judi Farr, Tim Gooding, Jean Kent, Joan Kirkby, John Larkin, Stephen Measday, Camilla Nelson, Ken Stewart, Mark Tredinnick, Gerry Turcotte, Murray Waldren and Les Wicks
Full Judges comments pdf
2008 NSW Premier's Prize Short lists
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($20,000)
J.M. Coetzee - Diary of a Bad Year
Matthew Condon - The Trout Opera
Gregory Day - Ron McCoy's Sea of Diamonds
Michelle de Kretser - The Lost Dog
Tom Keneally (left)- The Widow and Her Hero
Alex Miller -Landscape of Farewell
Back to top
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction ($20,000)
Tom Griffiths Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica
Philip Jones Ochre and Rust: Artifacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers
Guy Pearse High and Dry: John Howard, Climate Change and the Selling of Australia's Future
Jacob G Rosenberg Sunrise West (link to amazon.com
in USA as our local supplier does not have book in stock).
Nicholas Rothwell Another Country
Maria Tumarkin Courage
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($15,000)
Joanne Burns An illustrated history of Dairies
Brook Emery Uncommon Light
Peter Kirkpatrick Westering
Kathryn Lomer Two Kinds of Silence
David Malouf Typewriter Music
Phyllis Perlstone The Edge of Everything
Back to top
Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature ($15,000)
Lollie Barr The Mag Hags
David Metzenthen Black Water
Robert Newton The Black Dog Gang
James Roy Town
David Spillman & Lisa Wilyuka Us Mob Walawurru
Lizzie Wilcock GriEVE
The Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ($15,000)
Aaron Blabey Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley
Martin Chatterton The Brain Finds a Leg
Li Cunxin & Anne Spudvilas (illus) The Peasant Prince
Liz Lofthouse & Robert Ingpen (illus) Ziba Came on a Boat
Emily Rodda The Key to Rondo
Carole Wilkinson Dragon Moon
Community Relations Commission Award ($15,000)
John Fitzgerald Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia
David Hill The Forgotten Children
Mark Kurzem The Mascot
Jacob G. Rosenberg (link to amazon.com as not available fishpond.com.au)) Sunrise West
Peta Stephenson The Outsiders Within: Telling Australia's Indigenous-Asian Story
Gleebooks Prize ($10,000)- (great book shop- If you're in Sydney and have never been it's worth the trip. Details Gleebooks website)
Kay Anderson Race and the Crisis of Humanism
Helen Gilbert & Jacqueline Lo Performance and Cosmopolitics: Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australia, Niall Lucy & Steve Mickler The War on Democracy: Conservative Opinion in the Australian Press
Glenn Nicholls Deport: A History of Forced Departures from Australia
Peta Stephenson, The Outsiders Within: Telling Australia's Indigenous-Asian Story
Gillian Whitlock, Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit
Back to top
UTS Award for New Writing ($5,000)
No short list with this Award. Winner will be announced 19 May 2008
Play Award ($15,000)
Nicki Bloom 'Tender'
Wesley Enoch 'The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table'
Debra Oswald' Stories in the Dar'
Alana Valentine 'Parramatta Girl'
Script Writing Award ($15,000)
Anna Broinowski Forbidden Lie$
Elissa Down & Jimmy Jack (a.k.a. Jimmy the Exploder) The Black Balloon
Kristen Dunphy East West 101: episode 1, The Enemy Within
Alison Nisselle Curtin
Cathy Randall Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger
Michale James Rowland & Helen Barnes Lucky Miles
The NSW Premier's Literary Scholarship Prize ($15,000)
Katherine Barnes The Higher Self in Christopher Brennan's Poems: Esotericism, Romanticism, Symbolism
William Christie Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Literary Life
Richard Freadman This Crazy Thing a Life: Australian Jewish
Autobiography
Helen Gilbert & Janet Lo Performance and Cosmopolitics: Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australia
Anthony Uhlmann Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image
Ann Vickery Stressing the Modern: Cultural Politics in Australian Women's Poetry (Salt Studies in Contemporary Poetry S.)
Back to top
2007 NSW Premiers Literary Awards Winners
SEEK Books maintains a stock list of winners back to 2005 if you've missed a book or two that you would like to read. Go to SEEK Books NSW Premiers page>>
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($20,000)
Peter Carey , Theft: A Love Story, Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non Fiction ($20,000)
Robert Hughes, Things I Didn't Know, Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($15,000)
John Tranter (left), Urban Myths: 210 Poems, University of Queensland Press .
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ($15,000)
Narelle Oliver, Home, Omnibus Books
Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature ($15,000)
Ursula Dubosarsky (below right), The Red Shoe, Allen & Unwin
Play Award ($15,000)
Tommy Murphy, Holding the Man (adapted from the book by Timothy Conigrave), Griffin
Theatre Company & Currency Press
Script Award ($15,000)
Tony Ayres, The Home Song Stories, Porchlight Films & Big & Little Films
Community Relations Commission Award ($15,000)
Shaun Tan (right), The Arrival, Hachette Livre Australia
Gleebooks Prize for Critical Writing ($10,000)
Gideon Haigh, Asbestos House: the Secret History of James Hardie Industries, Scribe
Publications Pty Ltd
Back to top
UTS Award for New Writing ($5,000)
Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air (Black Australian Writing), University of Queensland Press
Book of the Year (additional $2,000)
Shaun Tan, (left) The Arrival, Hachette Livre Australia
Special Award ($5,000)
Gerald Murnane
NSW Premier's Translation Prize ($15,000) & PEN Medallion
John Nieuwenhuizen
NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2006 winners
Christina Stead Prize for fiction ($20,000)
Kate Grenville, The Secret River (Text Publishing)
Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction ($20,000)
Jacob G. Rosenberg, (link to amazon.com)East of Time (Alabama Fire Ant)
(Brandl & Schlesinger)
Kenneth Slessor Prize for poetry ($15,000)
Jaya Savige, Latecomers(Uni Qld Press)
NSW Premier's Prize for literary scholarship ($15,000)
Terry Collits, (link to amazon.com) Postcolonial Conrad: Paradoxes of Empire (Routledge)
Ethel Turner Prize for young people's literature ($15,000)
Ursula Dubosarsky, Theodora's Gift (Penguin)
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature($15,000)
Kierin Meehan, In the Monkey Forest (Penguin)
Community Relations Commission Award ($15,000)
Kate Grenville, The Secret River(Text Publishing)
Gleebooks Prize ($10,000) & Book of the Year ($2,000)
Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change (Text Publishing)
UTS Award for New Writing ($5,000)
Steven Lang, An Accidental Terrorist (Uni Qld Press)
Play Award ($15,000)
Thomas Murphy, Strangers in Between (Griffin Theatre Co)
Script Writing Award ($15,000)
Chris Lilley, We Can Be Heroes (Princess Pictures)
Special Award ($5,000)
Rosemary Dobson AO
Back to top
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 1982- present
SEEK Books maintains a stock list of winners back to 2005 if you've missed a book or two that you would like to read. Go to SEEK Books NSW Premiers page>>
Christina Stead Prize for fiction
* 2007 Theft: A Love Story,by Peter Carey
* 2006 The Secret River by Kate Grenville
* 2005 The Turning by Tim Winton
* 2004 Shanghai Dancing by Brian Castro
* 2003 Moral Hazard by Kate Jennings
* 2002 Dirt Music by Tim Winton
* 2001 Conditions of Faith by Alex Miller
* 2000 The Salt of Broken Tears by Michael Meehan
* 1999 Mr Darwin's Shooter by Roger McDonald
* 1997 The Drowner by Robert Drewe
* 1996 Leaning Towards Infinity by Sue Woolfe
* 1995 Just Like That by Lily Brett
* 1994 Seasonal Adjustments by Adib Khan
* 1993 Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
* 1992 The Death of Napoleon by Simon Leys
* 1991 JF Was Here by Nigel Krauth
* 1990 Reaching Tin River by Thea Astley
* 1989 Broken Words by Helen Hodgman
* 1988 Final Things by John Sligo
* 1987 No award made
* 1986 Postcards from Surfers by Helen Garner
* 1985 Milk and Honey by Elizabeth Jolley
* 1984 Milk by Beverley Farmer
* 1983 The Cure by Peter Kocan
* 1982 Bliss by Peter Carey
* 1981 The Impersonators by Jessica Anderson
* 1980 War Crimes by Peter Carey
* 1979 An Imaginary Life by David Malouf
Back to top
Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction
* 2007 Things I Didn't Know by Robert Hughes
* 2006(link to amazon.com)East of Time (Alabama Fire Ant)by Jacob G. Rosenberg
* 2005 The Idea of Home: autobiographical essays by John Hughes
* 2004 Dancing with Strangers by Inga Clendinnen
* 2003 Looking for Blackfellas' Point: An Australian History of Place by Mark McKenna
* 2002 The Poison Principle by Gail Bell
* 2001 Craft for a Dry Lake by Kim Mahood
* 2000 Stravinsky's Lunch by Drusilla Modjeska
* 1999 H M Bark Endeavour by Ray Parkin
* 1997 The Europeans in Australia: A History, Volume One by Alan Atkinson
* 1996 Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia by Tom Griffiths
* 1995 The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska
* 1994 Australia's Spies and Their Secrets by David McKnight; The Scandalous Penton by Patrick Buckridge
* 1993 Robert Menzies Forgotten People by Judith Brett; Put Your Whole Self In by Meme McDonald
* 1992 Patrick White by David Marr
* 1991 Sitting In by Barry Hill; Poppy by Drusilla Modjeska
* 1990 The Snowy by Siobhan McHugh
* 1989 His Mother's Country by Maslyn Williams
* 1988 Louisa by Brian Matthews
* 1987 The Irish In Australia by Patrick O'Farrell
* 1986 A Paper Prince by George Munster; The Kurnai of Gippsland, Volume One by Phillip Pepper with Tess De Araugo
* 1985 The Moon Man by Elsie Webster
* 1984 The Archibald Paradox by Sylvia Lawson
* 1983 Robert J. Hawke by Blanche d'Alpuget
* 1982 Rebels and Precursors by Richard Haese
* 1981 A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey
* 1980 Barwick by David Marr
* 1979 A History of Australia Volume IV by Manning Clark
Back to top
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
* 2007 Urban Myths: 210 Poems by John Tranter
* 2006Latecomers by Jaya Savige
* 2005 Smoke Encrypted Whispers by Samuel Wagan Watson
* 2004 Dear Deliria: New & Selected Poems by Pam Brown
* 2003 Screens Jets Heaven: New and Selected Poems by Jill Jones
* 2002 The Lovemakers by Alan Wearne
* 2001 Africa by Ken Taylor
* 2000 Mines by Jennifer Maiden
* 1999 Race Against Time by Lee Cataldi
* 1997 The Viewfinder by Anthony Lawrence
* 1996 Weeping for Lost Babylon by Eric Beach; Selected Poems by J.S. Harry
* 1995 Coming Home From the World by Peter Boyle
* 1994 Ghosting William Buckley by Barry Hill
* 1993 Translations from the Natural World by Les A. Murray
* 1992 Selected Poems by Elizabeth Riddell
* 1991 The Winter Baby by Jennifer Maiden
* 1990 The Clean Dark by Robert Adamson
* 1989 Under Berlin by John Tranter
* 1988 The Domesticity of Giraffes by Judith Beveridge
* 1987 Blood and Bone by Philip Hodgins
* 1986 Selected Poems 1963-83 by Robert Gray
* 1985 Your Shadow by Kevin Hart
* 1984 The People's Other World by Les A. Murray
* 1983 Tide Country by Vivian Smith
* 1982 Kaddish and Other Poems by Fay Zwicky
* 1981 Astral Sea by Alan Gould
* 1980 Man in the Honeysuckle by David Campbell
Back to top
NSW Prize for Literary Scholarship
* 2006 Postcolonial Conrad: Paradoxes of Empire by Terry Collits
* 2004 Broken Song: T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession by Barry Hill
Ethel Turner Prize for young people's literature
* 2007 The Red Shoe by Ursula Dubosarsky
* 2006 Theodora's Gift by Ursula Dubosarsky
* 2005 By the River by Steven Herrick
* 2004 Boys of Blood and Bone by David Metzenthen
* 2003 The Messenger by Markus Zusak
* 2002 Soldier Boy: The True Story of Jim Martin, the Youngest Anzac by Anthony Hill
* 2001 Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty
* 2000 The Binna-Binna Man by Meme McDonald and Boori Monty Pryor
* 1999 The Divine Wind by Garry Disher
* 1997 The Two Bullies by Junko Morimoto
* 1996 Johnny Hart's Heroes by David Metzenthen
* 1995 Mr Enigmatic by Jenny Pausacker
* 1994 The White Guinea Pig by Ursula Dubosarsky
* 1993 Tjarany Roughtail by Gracie Greene, Lucille Gill and Joe Tramacchi
* 1992 All in the Blue Unclouded Weather by Robin Klein
* 1991 Strange Objects by Gary Crew
* 1990 The Blue Chameleon by Katherine Scholes
* 1989 You Take the High Road by Mary Pershall
* 1988 Answers to Brut by Gillian Rubinstein
* 1987 A Rabbit Named Harris by Nan Hunt and Betina Ogden
* 1986 The True Story of Spit MacPhee by James Aldridge
* 1985 The House That was Eureka by Nadia Wheatley
* 1984 Possum Magic by Mem Fox and Julie Vivas
* 1983 Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen; Five Times Dizzy by Nadia Wheatley (Special Children's book)
* 1982 Whistle Up the Chimney by Nan Hunt and Craig Smith
* 1981 When the Wind Changed by Ruth Park and Deborah Niland; Seventh Pebble by Eleanor Spence
* 1980 Mr Archimedes' Bath by Pamela Allen; Land of the Rainbow Snake by Catherine Berndt (Special Children's book)
* 1979 John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat by Jenny Wagner; The Dark Bright Water by Patricia Wrightson (Special Children's book)
Back to top
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature
* 2007 Home by Narelle Oliver
* 2006 In the Monkey Forest by Kierin Meehan
* 2005 Farm Kid by Sherryl Clark
* 2004 Night Singing by Kierin Meehan
* 2003 Where in the World by Simon French
* 2002 The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
* 2001 Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks (illustrator)
* 2000 The Spangled Drongo by Steven Herrick
* 1999 Antonio S and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman by Odo Hirsch
Community Relations Commission Award
(Note from 1980 to 2000 called the Ethnic Affairs Commission Award)
* 2007 The Arrival by Shaun Tan
* 2006 The Secret River by Kate Grenville
* 2005 Certain Maritime Incident, A by Tony Kevin
* 2004 Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking Society by Ghassan Hage
* 2003 Secrets and Spies: The Harbin Files by Mara Moustafine
* 2002 Visits Home: Migration Experiences between Italy and Australia by Loretta Baldassar
* 2001 Rabbit-Proof Fence: The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time by Christine Olsen
Ethnic Affairs Commission Award
* 2000 The Binna-Binna Man by Meme McDonald and Boori Monty Pryor
* 1999 Mortal Divide: the Autobiography of Yiorgos Alexandroglou by George Alexander
* 1997 The Fiftieth Gate by Mark Raphael Baker
* 1996 Caravanserai by Hanifa Deen
* 1995 The First Book of Samuel by Ursula Dubosarsky
* 1994 Aphrodite and the Others by Gillian Bouras
* 1993 The Crocodile Fury by Beth Yahp
* 1992 Inside Outside by Andrew Riemer
* 1991 Jewels and Ashes by Arnold Zable
* 1987 Dreamtime Nightmares by Bill Rosser
* 1986 No Snow In December by Maria Lewitt
* 1985 Oh Lucky Country by Rosa Cappiello
* 1984 A Universe of Clowns by Serge Liberman
* 1983 Faith of Our Fathers by Spiro Zavos
* 1982 The Long Farewell by Don Charlwood
* 1981 For the Patriarch by Angelo Loukakis
* 1980 Australia through Italian Eyes by Stephanie Lindsay Thompson
Back to top
Gleebooks Prize for Critical Writing
* 2007 Asbestos House: the Secret History of James Hardie Industries by Gideon Haigh
* 2006The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change by Tim Flannery
* 2005 Blackfellas Whitefellas and the Hidden Injuries of Race by Gillian Cowlishaw
* 2004 The Artificial Horizon: Imagining the Blue Mountains by Martin Thomas
* 2003 How Simone de Beauvoir Died in Australia by Sylvia Lawson
* 2002 Borderline: Australia's treatment of refugees and asylum seekers by Peter Mares
* 2001 Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000 by Anna Haebich
* 2000 Reading the Holocaust by Inga Clendinnen
* 1999 Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A World that Is, Was and Will Be by Diane Bell
* 1997 Love and Freedom: Professional Women and the Reshaping of Personal Life by Alison Mackinnon
* 1996 Artful Histories: Modern Australian Autobiography by David McCooey
* 1995 Volatile Bodies, Towards a Corporeal Feminism by Elizabeth Grosz
Back to top
UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
Award renamed in 2008 from the UTS Award for New Writing to honour Glenda Adams.[2]
* 2007 Swallow the Air (Black Australian Writing) by Tara June Winch
* 2006 An Accidental Terrorist by Steven Lang
* 2005 The Last Ride by Denise Young
Play Award
* 2007 Holding the Man by Tommy Murphy, adapted from the book by Timothy Conigrave, Griffin Theatre Company
* 2006 Strangers in Between by Tommy Murphy
* 2005 Harbour by Katherine Thomson
* 2004 Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America by Stephen Sewell
* 2003 Half & Half by Daniel Keene
* 2002 Miss Tanaka by John Romeril
* 2001 Milo's Wake by Margery Forde and Michael Forde
* 2000 Scissors, Paper, Rock by Daniel Keene
* 1999 Box the Pony by Scott Rankin and Leah Purcell
* 1997 Jerusalem by Michael Gurr
* 1996 The Shoe-Horn Sonata by John Misto
* 1995 Sweet Phoebe by Michael Gow; Falling From Grace by Hannie Rayson
* 1994 Sex Diary of an Infidel by Michael Gurr
* 1993 Dead Heart by Nicholas Parsons
* 1992 Cosi by Louis Nowra
* 1991 Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson
* 1989 Hate by Stephen Sewell
* 1988 The Rivers of China by Alma De Groen
* 1987 Blood Relations by David Malouf
* 1986 Away by Michael Gow
* 1985 The Blind Giant is Dancing by Stephen Sewell
* 1984 Down an Alley Filled with Cats by Warwick Moss
* 1983 Variations by Nicholas Enright and Terence Clarke
Back to top
Script Writing Award
(Note: in 1990 the Film, Television and Radio Writing Awards were amalgamated in this one award)
* 2007 The Home Song Stories by Tony Ayres
* 2006 We Can Be Heroes by Chris Lilley
* 2005 The Art of War by Betty Churcher
* 2004 Marking Time by John Doyle
* 2003 Till Human Voices Wake Us by Michael Petroni
* 2002 My Mother India by Safina Uberoi
* 2001 Rabbit-Proof Fence by Christine Olsen
* 2000 Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
* 1999 Dance Me to My Song by Heather Rose, Frederick Stahl and Rolf de Heer
* 1997 Mabo: Life of an Island Man by Trevor Graham
* 1996 Blue Murder by Ian David
* 1995 Playing the Ego Card by Jane Kennedy, Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch
* 1994 Bad Boy Bubby by Rolf de Heer
* 1993 Strictly Ballroom by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce
* 1992 Dingo by Marc Rosenberg
* 1990 Sweetie by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee; An Angel at my Table by Laura Jones
Film Writing Award
* 1988 High Tide by Laura Jones
* 1987 Malcolm by David Parker
* 1986 Bliss by Peter Carey and Ray Lawrence
* 1985 My First Wife by Bob Ellis and Paul Cox
* 1984 Careful He Might Hear You by Michael Jenkins
Back to top
Radio Writing Award
* 1989 The Story of Anger Lee Bredenza by Alana Valentine
* 1988 Australia-Japan: A Love Story by Keith Gallasch and Virginia Baxter
Television Writing Award
* 1989 The True Believers by Bob Ellis and Stephen Ramsay
* 1988 Olive by Anthony Wheeler
* 1987 Two Friends by Helen Garner
* 1985 The Cowra Breakout by Margaret Kelly, Chris Noonan, Phillip Noyce and Russell Braddon
* 1984 Scales of Justice by Robert Caswell
NSW Premier's Translation Prize & PEN Medallion
* 2007 John Nieuwenhuizen
* 2005 Chris Andrews
* 2001 Mabel Lee
Back to top
Book of the Year
* 2007 The Arrival by Shaun Tan
* 2005 Smoke Encrypted Whispers by Samuel Wagan Watson
* 2004 Shanghai Dancing by Brian Castro
* 2003 Looking for Blackfellas' Point: An Australian History of Place by Mark McKenna
* 2002 The Lovemakers by Alan Wearne
* 2001 Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000 by Anna Haebich
* 2000 The Binna-Binna Man by Meme McDonald and Boori Monty Pryor
* 1999 H M Bark Endeavour by Ray Parkin
* 1997 The Drowner by Robert Drewe
* 1996 Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia by Tom Griffiths
* 1995 The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia by David Horton
* 1994 Seasonal Adjustments by Adib Khan
* 1993 Tjarany Roughtail by Gracie Green, Lucille Gill and Joe Tramacchi
* 1992 Selected Poems by Elizabeth Riddell
Special Award
* 2007 Gerald Murnane
* 2006 Rosemary Dobson
* 2005 Ruby Langford Ginibi
* 2004 Ruth Park
* 2003 Nick Enright
* 2002 Thea Astley
* 2001 Ron Pretty
* 2000 Dorothy Hewett
* 1999 Leslie Rees
* 1997 Colin Thiele
* 1996 Thomas Shapcott
* 1995 David Horton for The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press
* 1994 Dal Stivens
* 1993 Mudrooroo Nyoongah
* 1992 Ronald McCuaig
* 1991 Bill Neskovski, Judith Wright
* 1990 Bruce Beaver
* 1989 A D Hope
* 1988 Patricia Wrightson
* 1987 Glenda Adams for Dancing on Coral, Angus & Robertson
* 1986 William H. Wilde, Joy Hooton, Barry Andrews for The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Oxford University Press
* 1985 Dr Grace Perry
* 1984 Marjorie Barnard
* 1982 Christina Stead
Back to top
-
| 
Over 100 Australian and International Award Details. Winners. Shorts. News. All Genres. Enter here>>
Digg
Delicious
Facebook
Stumble Upon
Furl
Magnolia
Reddit
