The Prime Minister's Literary Awards winners 2024
The winners of the 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Awards have been announced! The Prime Minister's Literary Awards celebrate outstanding literary talent in Australia and the valuable contribution Australian literature and history makes to the nation's cultural and intellectual life.
🏆 FICTION WINNER
Anam by André Dao
A grandson tries to learn the family story. But what kind of story is it?
Moving from 1930s Hanoi through a series of never-ending wars and displacements to Saigon, Paris, Melbourne and Cambridge, Anam is a novel about memory and inheritance, colonialism and belonging, home and exile. Blending fiction and essay, theory and everyday life to imagine that which has been repressed, left out, and forgotten. The grandson mines his family and personal stories to turn over ideas that resonate with all of us around place and home, legacy and expectation, ambition and sacrifice. As he sifts through letters, photographs, government documents and memories, he has his own family to think about – a partner and a daughter. Is there a way to remember the past that creates a future for them?
See our staff reveiw here.
🏆 NONFICTION WINNER
Close to the Subject: Selected Works by Daniel Browning
This book is a collected works of one of Australia’s most accomplished media personalities.
Chronicling his career since 2007, Close to the Subject presents a selection of pieces from Daniel Browning’s stellar career as a journalist, radio broadcaster, critic and interviewer. Alongside conversations with the likes of the late Archie Roach, Doris Pilkington, and Vernon Ah Kee, the book contains a series of critical essays displaying Browning’s talent as an Australian cultural critic and public intellectual. A range of previously unpublished poetry, memoir, art writing and play script is also presented, highlighting his vulnerable and passionate creative side in its own right.
🏆 AUSTRALIAN HISTORY WINNER
Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country by Ryan Cropp
In the 1960s, Donald Horne offered Australians a compelling reinterpretation of the Menzies years as a period of social and political inertia and mediocrity. His book The Lucky Country was profoundly influential and, without doubt, one of the most significant shots ever fired in Australia's endless culture war.
Ryan Cropp's landmark biography positions Horne as an antipodean Orwell, a lively, independent and distinct literary voice 'searching for the temper of the people, accepting it, and moving on from there'. Through the eyes – and unforgettable words – of this preternaturally observant and articulate man, we see a recognisable modern Australia take shape.
🏆 POETRY WINNER
The Cyprian by Amy Crutchfield
From poems of desire and sexual longing to poems of love in the face of death, The Cyprian explores the joy and heartbreak love weaves into our lives. The collection confronts some of our primary questions about love: how is it possible to accept the death of the beloved? What role does deception play in love? When does love become a force of exploitation? The collection is composed of five parts, reflecting the different aspects of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty – a complexity which is also implicit in the ambiguity of the book’s title, ‘the Cyprian’.
🏆 YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE WINNER
We Could Be Something by Will Kostakis
Harvey's dads are splitting up. It's been on the cards for a while, but it's still sudden. Woken-by-his-father-to-catch-a-red-eye sudden. Now he's restarting his life in a new city, living above a cafe with the extended Greek family he barely knows.
Sotiris is a rising star. At seventeen, he's already achieved his dream of publishing a novel. When his career falters, a cute, wise-cracking bookseller named Jem upends his world.
Harvey and Sotiris's stories converge on the same street in Darlinghurst, in this beautifully heartfelt novel about how our dreams shape us, and what they cost us.
See our staff review here.
🏆 CHILDREN'S LITERATURE WINNER
Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Country by Violet Wadrill; Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal; Leah Leaman; Cecelia Edwards; Cassandra Algy; Felicity Meakins; Briony Barr; Gregory Crocetti
Did you know there are four types of termite poo? Or that a warm paste made from termite mound is used to strengthen a Gurindji baby's body and spirit? Or that spinifex (which termites eat) is one of the strongest plants in the world? Created as a collaboration between over 30 First Nations and non-Indigenous contributors, the story and artworks explore how termites and their mounds connect different parts of Country, from tiny Gurindji babies and their loving grandmothers, to spiky spinifex plants growing in the hot sun.
Written in traditional Gurindji, Gurindji Kriol and English (with a QR code to an audio version spoken in language), Tamarra is a truly original story with beautiful artwork that takes readers on an educational and cultural journey through Gurindji Country. For ages 7-12
