2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) winners

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2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) winners

25 May 2023

Horse, by United States based Australian author Geraldine Brooks, has been named winner of the 2023 Literary Fiction Book of the Year, at the ABIA awards this evening. Horse is a story that spans centuries, and explores the connection unrelated people share in a race horse:

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South, even as the nation reels towards war. An itinerant young artist who makes his name from paintings of the horse takes up arms for the Union and reconnects with the stallion and his groom on a perilous night far from the glamour of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse — one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor won the General Fiction Book of the Year category, while Wake by Shelley Burr won the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year.

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Australian literature, literary awards

Debra Dank wins NSW Premier Literary Award Book of the Year

22 May 2023

We Come With This Place, written by Gudanji and Wakaja woman Debra Dank, was named Book of the Year in the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards this evening in Sydney.

We Come with This Place is a remarkable book, as rich, varied and surprising as the vast landscape in which it is set. Debra Dank has created an extraordinary mosaic of vivid episodes that move about in time and place to tell an unforgettable story of country and people.

Dank calibrates human emotions with honesty and insight, and there is plenty of dry, down-to-earth humour. You can feel and smell and see the puffs of dust under moving feet, the ever-present burning heat, the bright exuberance of a night-time campfire, the emerald flash of a flock of budgerigars, the journeying wind, the harshness of a station shanty, the welcome scent of fresh water.

We Come with This Place is deeply personal, a profound tribute to family and the Gudanji Country to which Debra Dank belongs, but it is much more than that. Here is Australia as it has been for countless generations, land and people in effortless balance, and Australia as it became, but also Australia as it could and should be.

Dank’s 2022 debut title also won the Indigenous Writers’ Prize, the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction, and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing.

Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists 2023

22 May 2023

Katerina Gibson, George Haddad, and Jay Carmichael, have been named the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists for 2023. The prize is presented annually for Australian writers under the age of thirty-five, each of whom will receive five thousand dollars.

Melbourne based author Grace Chan was among authors accorded an honourable mention, for her debut novel Every Version of You. Established in 1997, past recipients of the Best Young Australian Novelists prize include Alice Pung, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Jennifer Down, and Robbie Arnott.

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Australian literature, literary awards

Helen Dale AKA Helen Demidenko speaks on Fakes and Frauds show

21 May 2023

In 1993 Brisbane based Australian author Helen Demidenko wrote her debut novel, The Hand that Signed the Paper. The work, which was labelled faction, being a story that blends fact and fiction, depicted a Ukrainian family who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War.

Demidenko, who claimed to be of mixed Ukrainian and Irish ancestry, said much of the novel was based on the experiences of her uncle, and other family members, who lived in Ukraine during the war. The Hand that Signed the Paper won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1993, a prize for unpublished manuscripts written by Australian authors aged thirty-five or under.

While some people criticised the novel for its anti-Semitic content, The Hand that Signed the Paper went on to win the 1995 Miles Franklin Literary Award, making Demidenko the youngest recipient of the prize in the process. Soon afterwards though, it was discovered Demidenko’s name was actually Helen Darville, who was the daughter of British immigrants, and of her supposed Ukrainian and Irish heritage, there was no trace.

Despite the resulting furore, The Hand that Signed the Paper also won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal in 1995, and remains available as an ebook, published under the name Helen Dale. Dale, who now lives in the United Kingdom, recently spoke to Sarah L’Estrange, host of Radio National’s Fakes and Frauds series, about writing the novel, and what happened when the hoax was revealed.

Although The Hand that Signed the Paper was not considered a work of non-fiction, thus evading potentially closer scrutiny, Dale claims, among other things, to have been surprised at how long it took for the ruse to be uncovered. One has to wonder whether we’ve heard the last of what must be Australia’s most astonishing literary hoax to date.

The 2023 Miles Franklin longlist

18 May 2023

The 2023 Miles Franklin longlist was unveiled yesterday. Considered to be one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards, the Miles Franklin honours works of fiction by Australian writers, and is made up of the following eleven titles:

Hopeless Kingdom by Kgshak Akec
Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran
Enclave by Claire G. Coleman
Losing Face by George Haddad
Forty Nights by Pirooz Jafari
Madukka The River Serpent by Julie Janson
The Lovers by Yumna Kassab
Iris by Fiona Kelly McGregor
Waypoints by Adam Ouston

In being included on this year’s longlist, Melbourne based author Jesscia Au continues on her upward trajectory, while Tasmanian writer Robbie Arnott is possibly only two steps away from garnering another accolade. But there’s also a number of not so familiar authors present, which is positive. This is looking like a wide open contest at the moment.

It’s also been another good year for independent publishers, particularly Sydney based Ultimo Press, who have three titles in the 2023 longlist. On the other hand, Allen & Unwin, one of Australia’s biggest publishing houses, is conspicuous by absence. In the past, being published by Allen & Unwin was considered a precursor of success in Australian literary awards.

The Miles Franklin shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 20 June 2023.

2023 WA Premier’s Book Awards shortlists

15 May 2023

Earlier today the 2023 WA Premier’s Book Awards shortlists were published.

The WA Premier’s Book Awards recognise the work of writers in Western Australia, in the same way the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, honour authors in those Australian states. It is refreshing to see some less familiar names featured today, as it can sometimes seem the same group of people crop up quite frequently — though for good reason — in various Australian literary awards.

The winners of the five WA Premier’s Book Awards categories will be announced in June 2023.

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Australian literature, literary awards

Poets Theodore Ell, Harry Reid, win 2022 Anne Elder Award

13 May 2023

Canberra based Australian translator and author Theodore Ell, and Melbourne based writer Harry Reid, have been named joint winners of the 2022 Anne Elder Award.

Established in 1977, the award is named for late Australian poet, and former Borovansky Ballet dancer, Anne Elder, who died in 1976, and is presented for the first published book by an Australian poet. Beginning in Sight, by Ell, and Leave Me Alone, by Reid, where published in 2022.

Ell was on a diplomatic posting in Lebanon in 2020, with his wife, at the time of the catastrophic Port of Beirut explosion. Although both survived the blast, the house they lived in was destroyed. Ell wrote an essay, Façades of Lebanon, about the incident, which won the 2021 Calibre Essay Prize.

Every Version of You by Grace Chan optioned for film

13 May 2023

Melbourne based Australian author Grace Chan’s debut novel Every Version of You, has been optioned for film. Cognito Entertainment, a new Los Angeles based film production company, whose goal is to bring weird science to life through story, will oversee the book to screen adaptation:

Neuroscientist and Stanford professor Dr. David Eagleman has teamed up with producers Matt Tauber and Adam Fratto to launch Cognito Entertainment, an independent production company centered around science programming and films. The Los Angeles and Palo Alto-based company has already begun working on scripted television series, documentaries and literary adaptation.

I’m part way through reading Every Version of You as I write this, and I can’t say I’m surprised. While great news for Chan, this is also a positive development for Australian writers of science fiction and speculative fiction, who often struggle to find someone to publish their work.

Lisa Berryman, Tim Winton, inducted to ABIA Hall of Fame

10 May 2023

Australian authors Lisa Berryman and Tim Winton were yesterday admitted to the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) Hall of Fame, for their decades of contribution to Australian literature. Berryman was recognised with the Pixie O’Harris Award for her work as a publisher of children’s and young adult titles, while Winton received the Lloyd O’Neil Award.

Vale Gabrielle Carey, co-author of 1979 novel Puberty Blues

6 May 2023

Australian author Gabrielle Carey, who co-wrote the controversial though iconic novel Puberty Blues, with Kathy Lette, died this week in Sydney.

Set in the southern suburbs of Sydney, Puberty Blues polarised readers with its no holds barred depictions of the antics, and sexuality, of Australian adolescents. Although published in 1979, Carey and Lette began writing the novel some years earlier as teenagers. The book spawned a film adaptation in 1981, and a two-series television run in 2012.

Carey went on to write a number of other books, both fiction and non-fiction, and also worked as a freelance journalist and university lecturer.

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