Love them or hate them – literary prizes are a great way to find books that have struck a chord with a panel of engaged and passionate readers. Here is a list of 30 literary prize winners from the past year for you to add to your TBR piles…

The Yield by Tara June Winch

Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020

Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains, and he is now determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. At her bittersweet homecoming from the other side of the world, his granddaughter August Gondiwindi learns that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. This richly narrated novel is a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.

See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill

Winner of the Stella Prize 2020

Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it? In this confronting and meticulously researched account, investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators – and the systems that enable them – in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a tough read, and a hugely necessary one.

Smart Ovens for Lonely People by Elizabeth Tan

Winner of the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2020

Conspiracies, memes, and therapies of various efficacy underpin this beguiling short-story collection. In the titular story, a cat-shaped oven tells a depressed woman she doesn’t have to be sorry anymore. A Yourtopia Bespoke Terraria employee becomes paranoid about the mounting coincidences in her life. Four girls gather to celebrate their underwear in a hilarious take-down of saccharine advertisements. With her trademark wit, slicing social commentary and highly original imaginings, Elizabeth Tan further cements her role as one of Australia’s most inventive writers.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020

As the title suggests – this is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright, who died as a child. This is the story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; of fleas that board a ship in Alexandria; and of a glovemaker’s son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written. This literary winner is a must-read for any Shakespeare fan.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2020

When Elwood Curtis arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide ‘physical, intellectual and moral training’ which will equip its inmates to become ‘honourable and honest men’, he is shocked to find the true nature of the school is cruel and vicious. Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for more than 100 years and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, this is a devastating narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction 2020

Set in Glasgow in the early 80s, Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain lays bare the relationship between a young boy and his alcohol-addicted mother, revealing the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. Agnes Bain has been abandoned by her philandering husband, left trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest, believing that if he tries his hardest, he can help his mother escape this hopeless place.

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (translated by Michele Hutchison)

Winner of the International Booker Prize 2020

A bestselling sensation in the Netherlands, The Discomfort of Evening is an extraordinary portrait of a family distorted by a terrible loss. 10-year-old Jas lives with her devout farming family in the rural Netherlands. One winter’s day, her older brother joins an ice skating trip. Resentful at being left alone, she makes a perverse plea to God; he never returns. As grief overwhelms the farm, Jas succumbs to a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies.

Hello Friend We Missed You by Richard Owain Roberts

Winner of the Not the Booker Prize 2020

This offbeat novel is a deeply poignant and bleakly comic meditation on loneliness, the ‘violent revenge thriller’ category on Netflix, solipsism, rural gentrification, Jack Black, and learning to exist in the least excruciating way possible. Its story of depression and death on a small Welsh island, of people armed with every social media completely failing to communicate, and it is far, far funnier (and more moving) than it has any right to be.

Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs

Winner of the Nib Literary Award 2020

What can whales reveal about our world today? Fathoms: The World in the Whale shares stories of whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. In the spirit of Rachel Carson and Rebecca Solnit, Rebecca Giggs gives us a vivid exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis.

Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar

Winner of the Barbara Jefferis Award 2020

Kitty Hawke is the last inhabitant of a dying island sinking into the wind-lashed Chesapeake Bay. She has resigned herself to annihilation until the night her pregnant granddaughter rows ashore, begging for sanctuary. Blood cannot be turned away in times like these and when trouble comes following, no one is more surprised than Kitty to find she will protect them as fiercely as her name suggests. This is dystopian fiction at its best - lyrical, powerful and full of heart.

Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe

Winner of the ARA Historical Novel Prize 2020

When family circumstances force siblings Ying and Lai Yue to flee their home in China to seek their fortunes in Australia, they quickly learn that life on the gold fields is hard, and soon abandon the diggings to nearby Maytown. Once there, Lai Yue finds a job as a carrier on an overland expedition, while Ying finds work in a local store and strikes up a friendship with Meriem, a young white woman with her own troubled past. When a serious crime is committed, suspicion falls on all those who are considered outsiders. Stone Sky Gold Mountain is a heartbreaking and immersive work of historical fiction.

Nganajungu Yagu by Charmaine Papertalk Green

Winner of the Australian Literature Society (ALS) Gold Medal 2020

A visual artist, poet, writer, independent curator and social sciences researcher, Charmaine Papertalk Green is a member of the Wajarri, Badimaya and Nhanagardi cultural groups from the Yamaji Nation of Western Australia. A stunning blend of poetry and memoir, Nganajungu Yagu is inspired by letters Papertalk Green exchanged with her mother in the 1970s after she left home to live in an Aboriginal girls’ hostel in the Bentley suburb of Perth.

Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham

Winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award 2020

Six years ago, Evie Cormac was discovered, filthy and half-starved, hiding in a secret room in the aftermath of a shocking crime. Now approaching adulthood, Evie is damaged, self-destructive and has never revealed her true identity. Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven, a man haunted by his own past, is investigating the death of champion figure-skater Jodie Sheehan. When Cyrus is called upon to assess Evie, she threatens to disrupt the case and destroy his ordered life. Because Evie has a unique and dangerous gift – she always knows when someone is lying.

Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke

Winner of the Staunch Book Prize 2020

A gorgeously written and haunting work of southern gothic crime that simmers with racial tensions, Heaven, My Home is part police-procedural and part family drama. Ranger Darren Mathews is part of a team investigating the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. His superiors hope that his presence as a black man will shake people up and improve their chances of success at closing the case. But when a son of one of their captain’s goes missing, Mathews is forced to question his own loyalties.

The Trespassers by Meg Mundell

Winner of the Davitt Award for Adult Crime 2020

Fleeing their pandemic-stricken homelands, a shipload of migrant workers departs the UK, dreaming of a fresh start in prosperous Australia. Among them is nine-year-old Cleary Sullivan, Glaswegian songstress Billie Galloway, and impoverished English schoolteacher Tom Garnett. When a crew member is found murdered and passengers start falling gravely ill, the Steadfast is plunged into chaos and -– thrown together by chance –- the three must join forces to survive the journey and its aftermath.

The Wife and the Widow by Christian White

Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction 2020

Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and the Widow is a mystery-thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside down when she’s forced to confront the evidence that her husband is a murderer. But nothing on this island is as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives.

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell

Winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award 2020

On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles his fate with those of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. So begins a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond.

Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller

Winner of the Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2020

Stacey and Laney are twins, yet they could not be more different from one another. Stacey works hard at school; Laney skips school and sneaks out to meet her boyfriend. But when Laney disappears one night, Stacey refuses to believe, as most of the townsfolk do, that Laney has just run away with her boyfriend. There are darker forces at work and when Stacey starts to dream of terrifying monsters, she knows that she must find out what has happened to her sister – before it’s too late. A terrifying and spooky thriller set against a backdrop of family relationships, small-town grudges and casual racism.

Tiberius with a Telephone by Patrick Mullins

Winner of the National Biography Award 2020

William McMahon was a significant figure in Australian politics in the second half of the twentieth century. This biography tells the story of his life, his career, and his doomed attempts to recast views of his much-maligned time as Australia’s prime minister. A man whose life was coloured by tragedy, comedy, persistence, courage, farce, and failure, his story has never been told at length. Tiberius with a Telephone fills that gap, using deep archival research and extensive interviews with McMahon’s contemporaries and colleagues.

Fallen by Lucie Morris-Marr

Winner of the Walkley Book Award 2020

In 2016 investigative journalist Lucie Morris-Marr was the first to break the story that Cardinal George Pell was being investigated by the police. She attended every day of his secret trial, and she now tells the full story of the fall of a prince of the church. From his modest upbringing, his steady rise to the most senior ranks of the church in Australia, to his appointment by Pope Francis to the position of treasurer in the Vatican, it seemed nothing could stop George Pell. Fallen is a gripping story that will fascinate anyone interested in the Catholic Church and its failure to address the canker in its heart.

Sea People by Christina Thompson

Winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction 2020

A masterful mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People combines the thrill of exploration with the drama of discovery in a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world. In its pages, author Christina Thompson explores the fascinating story of her Maori husband’s ancestors – as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists and geographers who have puzzled over this history for 300 years.

The Whole Fish Cookbook by Josh Niland

Winner of the James Beard Book of the Year Award 2020

From sourcing and butchering to dry ageing and curing, Josh Niland invites readers to see fish as an amazing, complex source of protein that can, and should, be treated with exactly the same nose-to-tail reverence as meat. Featuring more than 60 recipes for dozens of fish species, The Whole Fish Cookbook will soon have readers seeing that there is so much more to a fish than just the fillet.

The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey

Winner of the Walter Scott Prize 2020

Opening in the late summer season on Cape Cod in 1950, 10-year-old Michael is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living nearby – artists Jo and Edward Hopper – and an unlikely friendship is forged. A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream, The Narrow Land is a sweeping, immersive work of historical fiction.

Tales from the Inner City by Shaun Tan

Winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal 2020

World-renowned artist Shaun Tan applies his unique imagination to a reflection on the nature of humans and animals, and our urban coexistence. From crocodile to frog, tiger to bee, this is a dark and surreal exploration of the perennial love and destruction we feel and inflict – of how animals can save us, and how our lives are forever entwined, for better or for worse. Suitable for ages 10 to 110.

The Girl, the Cat & the Navigator by Matilda Woods

Winner of the Readings Children’s Book Prize 2020

Curious, pin-bright Oona Britt dreams of setting sail with her ship’s captain father for a life of excitement on the wild waves. She has read stories of a magical creature – the Nardoo – who swims through the stars at night, and stows away on whaling boat the Plucky Leopard for an adventure full of myths and marvel among the ice-caps. An enchanting, charming story of bravery on the ice-tipped ocean, this novel also includes stunning illustrations from Anuska Allepuz.

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison

Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2020

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again is a masterful and timely work of speculative fiction. The narrative follows Shaw, a man in his 50s who is attempting to get his life back together following a breakdown. He’s engaged in an on-and-off love affair with Victoria, a woman who’s moved to the midlands to renovate her dead mother’s house. When strange rumours and impossible events begin occurring, both Shaw and Victoria become tangled up in them.

Lot by Bryan Washington

Winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize 2020

In the city of Houston the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He’s working at his family’s restaurant, weathering his brother’s blows, resenting his older sister’s absence, and discovering he likes boys. This boy and his family experience the tumult of living in the margins, the heartbreak of ghosts, and the braveries of the human heart. The stories of others living and thriving and dying across Houston’s myriad neighbourhoods are also woven throughout Bryan Washington’s brilliant and insightful debut story collection.

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2020

Irish teenager Dara McAnulty spent a year of his life writing vivid, evocative and moving diary entries about the passing seasons and the way he sees the world. Diary of a Young Naturalist portrays his intense connection to the natural world, and his perspective as a teenager juggling exams and friendships alongside a life of campaigning. At 16 years, he is the youngest author to ever win this prestigious award for nature writing.

One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2020

One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time traces the chance fusion of the four key elements that made up The Beatles: fire (John), water (Paul), air (George) and earth (Ringo). It also tells the bizarre and often unfortunate tales of the disparate and colourful people within their orbit. This kaleidoscopic mixture of history, etymology, diaries, autobiography, fan letters, essays, parallel lives, party lists, charts, interviews, announcements and stories joyfully echoes the frenetic hurly-burly of an era.

Australia’s Creative Native Cuisine by Andrew Fielke

Winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for Indigenous Foods 2020

This is the ultimate resource for home cooks looking to use more Australian native ingredients in their food preparation. It includes… more than 150 original recipes incorporating Australian native foods; an Australian plant food glossary that includes descriptions, illustrations, nutritional aspects, forms, availability, seasonality, and uses; expanded descriptions of certain key ingredients; chef’s tips and cooking notes; and substitute ingredients where needed.