2009 Literary Awards winners
Fiction Book Award
Wanting by Richard Flanagan
This distinguished Australian writer brings history to life in this fascinating novel based on events in early colonial Australia and England. Particularly impressive is his visionary and imaginative exploration of the inner life of that icon of world literature, Charles Dickens. This book puts flesh on the bones of history and skilfully explores the inner recess of human aspirations. It's brilliantly evocative, emotionally rich and unbearably sad at times. A rare achievement from an author at the height of his powers.
Non-Fiction Book Award
The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island by Chloe Hooper
This book shines in the quality of its reporting, management of narrative and use of the narrator's persona as a way of guiding us through the story. The Tall Man speaks to issues of race and power and the fraught relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Unpublished Indigenous Writer - Arts Queensland David Unaipon Award
The Boundary by Nicole Watson
The Boundary has complex themes that are deftly interwoven and balanced and bring to the reader a dynamic contemporary canvas that stretches from the courtrooms of native title hearings, black politics, mysterious murders and personal relationships, to inherent cultural beliefs, knowledge and transmission, with the spiritual world of the Dreaming and traditional law ever present. The passion and all too human but complex characters of this important book will appeal to a wide audience and, most significantly, it brings a new genre into the existing body of Indigenous literature.
Film Script - Pacific Film and Television Commission Award
Mary and Max by Adam Elliot
This is the story of two lonely, isolated people: a child and a middle aged autistic man, pen pals sharing their doubts, enthusiasms, perceptions and knowledge over many years. Everything they say to each other is coloured and lit by their innocence, fears, ignorance and insights, but always softly funny, even when they are saying the most dire things. Extraordinary things happen to them and around them, but they always respond with the same befuddled anxiety. This is one of those pieces of work where the word "beautiful" applies but rarely has beautiful been so funny, or so sad, or so true.
Television Script - QUT Creative Industries Award
False Witness by Peter Gawler
This canvas of the exceptional Australian written international co-production mini-series spreads across London, Tajikistan and Sydney, where one man's wits are pitted against the Russian Mafia and corrupt espionage agencies. This energy-packed piece never stops, carrying us along at speed on the edge of our seats, plunging on towards the shocking climax. The writing is taught and lean, the characters are clear, believable and sympathetically drawn. The plot is intricate, but never lost. The pace is compelling, the stakes are high, the dialogue is clear and true to type for each character, and the tone always rings true.
Drama Script (Stage) Award
Realism by Paul Galloway
This superbly written, tightly structured, wildly probable, very funny and terrifying play explores the intricate evils and absurdist comedy of the paranoiac state. It is a conventional work in structure and approach, but its resonance, clarity and acid accuracy work all the better because of this solid foundation of sense. This is a play that shows us that whenever it comes down to a struggle between art and real life, art hasn't got a chance.
Poetry Collection - Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Award
The Striped World by Emma Jones
This is a quite extraordinary first book: immensely sophisticated, with much to say about Australia's past, about perception and about the tension between forms and processes. The material is treated with great composure and assurance in that each poem stands alone as an attempt to deal with an issue. One never gets the sense that this is a set of poems exploiting a method to say something about a complex theme.
Australian Short Story Collection - Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award
The Boat by Nam Le
This is a justifiably acclaimed collection. The opening story sets a very high standard and the ones that follow exhibit a range in both subject matter and setting which is astounding. No other writer in this year's survey attempts anything like the scope so confidently handled here. Nam Le has obviously studied the best American models and his work benefits from their example. This is a writer who demonstrates both skill and a large vision.
Children's Book - Mary Ryan's Award
Little Blue by Gaye Chapman
This original picture book is a surprising retelling of the willow pattern story with illustrations that create a world any reader would long to enter. A boy finds Little Blue lost in the forest and offers to take her to his house where his grandmother is delighted to see who he has brought home. Clues woven throughout the book about Little Blue's identity become clear when the end is reached.
Young Adult Book Award
A Small Free Kiss in the Dark by Glenda Millard
This novel is a moving account of war's devastation, of how a boy's artistic talents give him some of the necessary strength to survive it and of how even amid the arbitrary chaos of war it is still possible to make choices. Poetic and lyrical, with a poignant understatement that avoids clich or sentimentality, the narrative is imbued with a sense of spiritual value, compassion, redemption and the possibility that even the most damaged of us can be heroic. This inspiring novel holds together flawlessly and would appeal to readers of 12 to old age.
Science Writer Award
Pasteur's Gambit: Louis Pasteur, The Australasian Rabbit Plague and a Ten Million Dollar Prize by Stephen Dando-Collins
This rollicking read sheds light on a little known scientific saga of the late 1800s that ultimately played a significant role in Australian and French history. Political skulduggery and world famous names are central to the gripping tale that reveals the earliest but still current fundamentals of the biotech industry: big money, the competition for discoveries and recognition and how human foibles bear on scientific endeavour.
History Book - Faculty of Arts, University of Queensland Award
Stella Miles Franklin by Jill Roe
This is a superbly researched biography. Miles Franklin was a literary figure of national and international importance. Important subjects are well tackled and the whole work is richly contextualised. It is a book beautifully written with great narrative drive that makes an important contribution to scholarship in both Australian history and literature. It should also appeal to the general reader.
Literary or Media Work Advancing Public Debate - The Harry Williams Award
Code of Silence by Sarah Ferguson
Code of Silence is a confronting examination of the culture of sexual exploitation of women by rugby league stars. The candid presentation highlights victims' first-hand accounts of their degrading experiences and suffering, forcing the debate to dominate the public domain where it engaged Australians from all walks of life. It is a well-rounded and fearless documentary.
Last reviewed: 7 September, 2009
Last updated: 7 September, 2009
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