NSW Premier's Literary Awards Shortlist Announced



In the middle of the day today I went to the announcement of the shortlist for the 30th NSW Premier's Literary Awards. It wasn't at Gleebooks as in recent years, but in the Mint, right next door to the State Parliament: the politicians were making us come to them, it seemed. When it came time for the announcements, though, it was the premier himself who took the podium, and made it reasonably clear that he embraced the task with at least as much relaxed pleasure as Bob Carr did in bygone years (though Nathan Rees wasn't relaxed enough to quote Stalin). Departing from his scripted speech, he told us that one of the joys of being premier is that he can say to someone in his office, 'Would you get me a phone number for Christos Tsiolkas?' and then phone the man to congratulate him on a recent award. Helen Garner sent her apologies for the occasion, and in another departure from his script, Nathan said it was just as well because otherwise he might have got caught up in conversation with her and delayed proceedings. I assume he was identifying himself as a Garner fanboy rather than an old friend. He did keep up a tradition established over recent years by referring to Louise Nowra, but that slip was easily forgiven -- by me at least, I can't speak for Mr Nowra. Here's the shortlist, with links for those I've read (or seen) and blogged. I've put my tips for winners in italics, even though I've read so few that it's a bit like betting on the Melbourne Cup without consulting the form.

The biennial New South Wales Premier’s Translation Prize:
Harry Aveling
David Colmer
Alison Entrekin
Simon Patton
Kevin Windle

The Script Writing Award:
David Caesar - Prime Mover
Greg Haddrick, Felicity Packard & Peter Gawler - Underbelly: Series 1 (Nathan Rees said, 'No comment, there are reporters here.')
Anna-Maria Monticelli - Disgrace
Sean Nash - All Saints Episode 447: Not What You'd Expect
Louis Nowra and Rachel Perkins and Beck Cole - First Australians

The Play Award:
Andrew Bovell - When the Rain Stops Falling
Brendan Cowell - Ruben Guthrie
Tom Holloway - Don't Say the Words
Daniel Keene - The Serpent's Teeth
Damien Millar - The Modern International Dead
Tom Wright - The Women of Troy

The Gleebooks Prize for an outstanding book of critical writing:
James Boyce - Van Diemen’s Land
Tim Flannery - Quarterly Essay 31: Now or Never, a sustainable future for Australia?
Gideon Haigh - The Racket: how abortion became legal in Australia
Chloe Hooper - The Tall Man: death and life on Palm Island
David Love - Unfinished Business: Paul Keating's interrupted revolution
Jonathan Richards - The Secret War: a true history of Queensland's Native Police

The Community Relations Commission Award for a book, play, music drama or script which is deemed by the judges to have both made a significant contribution to Australian literature, theatre, film, radio or television in its portrayal of the interaction of Australia's diverse cultures, and canvassed issues arising from the Australian immigration and migrant settlement experience:
Anna Haebich - Spinning the Dream: assimilation in Australia 1950 - 1970
Philip Jones and Anna Kenny - Australia's Muslim Cameleers: pioneers of the Inland 1860-1930s
Jacqueline Kent - An Exacting Heart: the Story of Hephzibah Menuhin
Michelle Offen - East West 101: Chapter 5 - Haunted by the Past
Malcolm Prentis - The Scots in Australia
Eric Richards - Destination Australia: migration to Australia since 1901

The Patricia Wrightson Prize for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry written for children up to secondary school level:
Ursula Dubosarsky & Tohby Riddle (Illustrator) - The Word Spy
Bob Graham - How to Heal a Broken Wing
Sonya Hartnett and Ann James (Illustrator) - Sadie and Ratz
Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King (Illustrator) - Perry Angel's Suitcase
Tohby Riddle - Nobody Owns the Moon
Shaun Tan - Tales from Outer Suburbia

The Ethel Turner Prize ($30,000) for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry written for young people of secondary school level:
Dianne Bates - Crossing the Line
Michelle Cooper - A Brief History of Montmaray
D.M Cornish - Monster Blood Tattoo Book Two: Lamplighter
Alison Goodman - The Two Pearls of Wisdom
Nette Hilton - Sprite Downberry
Joanne Horrniman - My Candlelight Novel

The Kenneth Slessor Prize for a book of poems or for a single poem of substantial length published in book form:
Michael Brennan - Unanimous Night
David Brooks - The Balcony
Sarah Holland-Batt - Aria
LK Holt - Man Wolf Man
Kerry Leves - A Shrine to Lata Mangeshkar
Alan Wearne - The Australian Popular Songbook

The Douglas Stewart Prize for a prose work other than a work of fiction:
James Boyce - Van Diemen’s Land
Robert Gray - The Land I Came Through Last
Chloe Hooper - The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island
Dmetri Kakmi - Mother Land
Jacqueline Kent - An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin
Christina Thompson - Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All

The Christina Stead Prize for a book of fiction:
Helen Garner - The Spare Room
Kate Grenville - The Lieutenant
Julia Leigh - Disquiet
Joan London - The Good Parents (Much loved by them that recommend books to me.)
Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole (Damned with faint praise by people of my acquaintance.)
Tim Winton - Breath (A keen surfer in my all-male book group has put me off this one.)

It's a pretty good list, I think, and I hope to get to read a couple more of them in the next weeks. Oh, there's a new award:

The People's Choice Award
We get to vote, only on the Christina Stead short-list titles, only those of us who are residents of New South Wales with a working email address, and only once each. I've got four novels to read before i can cast a vote in good conscience. Or I could just vote anyhow. Hmmm. You can vote here.

Amended on 25 March to add Julia Leigh's Disquiet to Christina Stead list. It still isn't on the short list on the web site, but a little investigation showed that it is named in the judge's comments (link is to a pdf).

Added later on 25 March: the awards web site is now correct.

Posted: Tue - March 24, 2009 at 03:50 PM           |

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