The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards shortlists for 2021 have been revealed. Congratulations to all the shortlistees!

PRIZE FOR FICTION

• The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan
• Our Shadows by Gail Jones
• The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay
• The Coconut Children by Vivian Pham

Highly commended:

• Revenge by S.L. Lim
• Smart Ovens for Lonely People by Elizabeth Tan

PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

• Songlines: The Power and Promise by Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly
• Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing Us by Paddy Manning
• Show Me Where It Hurts by Kylie Maslen
• Witness by Louise Milligan
• Blueberries by Ellena Savage
• Fire Country: How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia by Victor Steffensen

Highly commended:

• After the Count by Stephanie Convery
• Hazelwood by Tom Doig
• People of the River by Grace Karskens
• British India, White Australia by Kama Maclean

PRIZE FOR INDIGENOUS WRITING

• Tell Me Why by Archie Roach
• Kindred by Kirli Saunders
• Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
• Where the Fruit Falls by Karen Wyld

Highly commended:

• Late Murrumbidgee Poems by John Mukky Burke

PRIZE FOR DRAMA

• Wonnangatta by Angus Cerini
• SLAP. BANG. KISS. by Dan Giovannoni
• Sunshine Super Girl: The Evonne Goolagong Story by Andrea James

Highly commended:

• Wherever She Wanders by Kendall Feaver
• Torch the Place by Benjamin Law

PRIZE FOR POETRY

• Ask Me About the Future by Rebecca Jessen
• Case Notes by David Stavanger
• Throat by Ellen van Neerven

Highly commended:

• Of Memory and Furniture by Bron Bateman
• Turbulence by Thuy On

PRIZE FOR WRITING FOR YOUNG ADULTS

• The F Team by Rawah Arja
• Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore
• Where We Begin by Christie Nieman

Highly commended:

• The End of the World is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell
• The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

PRIZE FOR AN UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT

• Anam by André Dao
• On a Knife’s Edge by Neela Janakiramanan
• But the Girl by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu

Highly commended:

• Children of Tomorrow by J.R. Burgmann
• Goblins by Patrick Hunn
• The Guest House by Kylie Mirmohamadi

The winners of the main suite of awards – fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry, writing for young adults and the biennial award for Indigenous writing – each receive $25,000. The winner of the Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript receives $15,000. The category winners will be announced at an online awards ceremony on Thursday 28 January, and will go on to contest the overall Victorian Prize for Literature, worth an additional $100,000.

Please visit the Wheeler Centre website for more information.