2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) winners

Showing all posts tagged: literary awards

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

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov wins International Booker Prize

24 May 2023

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, book cover.

Georgi Gospodinov, described as the most translated and internationally awarded Bulgarian writer after 1989, has won the 2023 International Booker Prize, for his 2022 novel Time Shelter.

Translated by American literary translator Angela Rodel, Gospodinov’s fourth book features a curious medical facility that assists Alzheimer’s patients, by masquerading as a time machine:

In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a ‘clinic for the past’ that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.

As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter’, hoping to escape from the horrors of our present — a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.

The winning author and translator each receive half of the £50,000 prize money on offer. If there had been an award for best book cover of the International Booker Prize shortlist, I would have adjudged Time Shelter the winner at the time I wrote about the shortlist.

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.

The Book Thief, Australia’s Eurovision book contest 2023 entry

22 May 2023

The Book Thief, the 2005 novel by Sydney based Australian author Markus Zusak, is Australia’s entry in the inaugural Eurovision book contest. Yes, you read that right. The Eurovision book contest, which is an initiative of the annual Hay Festival, a literary festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Wales.

The victor will be decided by way of audience discussion on Friday 2 June 2023. A full list of contenders in the contest can be seen here.

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literary awards, literature

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

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.

Barbara Kingsolver, Hernan Diaz win 2023 fiction Pulitzer Prize

9 May 2023

The Pulitzer Prize, which recognises excellence by American writers, be they journalists, magazine writers, and book authors, announced its 2023 recipients, early this morning, Australian time, with Barbara Kingsolver, and Hernan Diaz being named winners in the fiction category:

The Pulitzer prize for fiction was awarded on Monday to two class-conscious novels: Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver’s modern recasting of the Dickens classic David Copperfield, and Hernan Diaz’s Trust, an innovative narrative of wealth and deceit set in 1920s New York.

Limberlost, Wandering With Intent, win 2023 Age Book of Year

4 May 2023

The Age Book of the Year Awards 2023 winners were announced this evening, at the opening of the 2023 Melbourne Writers Festival. The awards, presented annually, are made in two categories for Australian writing: fiction and non-fiction.

Limberlost, by Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott was named winner in the fiction category, while Wandering With Intent, by Wamboin, New South Wales based author and artist, Kim Mahood triumphed in the non-fiction category.

Arnott’s win today is his second in the awards. He also won in 2021, the year the prize returned after a nine year absence, with his 2020 novel The Rain Herron.

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