The winners for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards have been announced:

Fiction

Dog Boy by Eva Hornung

What the judges said: “Hornung challenges us to believe that an abandoned child in a decaying city in deep winter can sympathetically enter the small, embattled but protective society of a dog pack. The resonances of the novel are bleak and unsettling…”

Non-fiction

The Colony: A History of Early Sydney by Grace Karskens

What the judges said: “The Colony deserved this year’s award for its high literary quality and originality. As a fine history, it is a story which also informs the present and gives us signposts for the future. ”

Young Adult Fiction

Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by Bill Condon

What the judges said: “The short, chiselled chapters ensure that not a word is wasted. Condon is a writer of considerable craft who eschews the flamboyant in search of deeper truths. The winner of the 2010 Young Adult Fiction Award is a work of tremendous honesty and integrity…”

Childrens Fiction

Star Jumps by Lorraine Marwood

What the judges said: “This is a moving evocation of home and family bonds, and the rhythms of farm life, and explores the effect of drought on all of these things. Star Jumps speaks with a natural poetry and unfussy richness.”