The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards: All the Winners

Yesterday marked the 40-year anniversary of The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, held at the State Library of New South Wales. The New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, also known as the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, were first awarded in 1979. They are among the richest literary awards in Australia. The awards have a proud history, both in celebrating achievement by Australian writers and in helping to establish values and standards in Australian literature.

This year’s winner of NSW Premier’s Literary Award Book of the Year is Billy Griffiths’ Deep Time Dreaming, Uncovering Ancient Australia, which charts the history of Aboriginal archaeology in Australia. The book also shared the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction with The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein.

Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe won the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, while the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction went to The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser. And the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature is shared between Leave Taking by Lorraine Marwood and Dingo by Claire Saxby and Tannya Harricks.

Congratulations to all the winners:

Book of the Year ($10,000)
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia by Billy Griffiths

Special Award ($10,000)
No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrooz Boochani

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)
The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5000)
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40,000)
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia by Billy Griffiths
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)
Interval by Judith Bishop

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)
Leave Taking by Lorraine Marwood
Dingo by Claire Saxby and Tannya Harricks

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature ($30,000)
Amelia Westlake by Erin Gough

Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)
The Almighty Sometimes by Kendall Feaver

Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)
Jirga by Benjamin Gilmour

Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)
The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

NSW Premier’s Translation Prize ($30,000)
Alison Entrekin