Winners of the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards

Victorian Prize for Literature
Counting and Cracking by S. Shakthidharan. Associate Writer Eamon Flack (Belvoir and Co-Curious)

Prize for Fiction
Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas (Allen & Unwin)

Prize for Non-Fiction
Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson (HarperCollins Publishers)

Prize for Drama
Counting and Cracking by S. Shakthidharan. Associate Writer Eamon Flack (Belvoir and Co-Curious)

Prize for Poetry
Nganajungu Yagu by Charmaine Papertalk Green (Cordite Books)

Prize for Writing for Young Adults
How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox (Pan Macmillan Australia)

Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript
Hovering by Rhett Davis

People’s Choice Award
The Girls by Chloe Higgins (Picador Australia)

Read more here.

The shortlist

Fiction 

• Act of Grace by Anna Krien (Black Inc.)
• Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas (Allen & Unwin)
• Simpson Returns by Wayne Macauley (Text Publishing)
• The House of Youssef by Yumna Kassab (Giramondo Publishing)
• The Yield by Tara June Winch (Penguin Random House)

Non-fiction

• Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology by Lizzie O’Shea (Verso)
• Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson (HarperCollins Publishers)
• See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse by Jess Hill (Black Inc.)
• Songspirals: Sharing women’s wisdom of Country through songlines by Gay’wu Group of Women (Allen & Unwin)
• Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music by Archie Roach (Simon & Schuster Australia)
• The Girls by Chloe Higgins (Picador Australia)

Drama

• City of Gold by Meyne Wyatt (Currency Press, in association with Queensland Theatre and Griffin Theatre)
• Counting and Cracking by S.Shakthidharan and Associate Writer Eamon Flack (Belvoir and Co-Curious)
• Them by Samah Sabawi (La Mama Theatre, in association with Samah Sabawi and Lara Week)

Poetry

• Birth Plan by L.K. Holt (Vagabond Press)
• Nganajungu Yagu by Charmaine Papertalk Green (Cordite Books)
• Yuiquimbiang by Louise Crisp (Cordite Books)

Writing for Young Adults

• How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox (Pan Macmillan Australia)
• Invisible Boys by Holden Sheppard (Fremantle Press)
• This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield (Text Publishing)

Unpublished Manuscript

• A Million Things by Emily Spurr
• Hovering by Rhett Davis
• In Real Life by Allee Richards

Highly commended

Non-fiction 

• Castaway: The extraordinary survival story of Narcisse Pelletier, a young French cabin boy shipwrecked on Cape York in 1858 by Robert Macklin (Hachette Australia)
• The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat: A Rodent History of Australia by Tim Bonyhady (Text Publishing)
• The Thinking Woman by Julienne van Loon (NewSouth Publishing)

Drama

• Anthem by Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Melissa Reeves, Christos Tsiolkas and Irine Vela (Performing Lines in association with Arts Centre Melbourne)
• White Pearl by Anchuli Felicia King (Samuel French, in association with Sydney Theatre Company and Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta)

Poetry

• Archival-Poetics by Natalie Harkin (Vagabond Press)
• The Future Keepers by Nandi Chinna (Fremantle Press)

Young Adult

• Highway Bodies by Alison Evans (Echo Publishing)
• When the Ground is Hard by by Malla Nunn (Allen & Unwin)

Unpublished Manuscript

• I’ll hold you by Jenni Mazaraki

Special Commendation

Fiction

• The Rich Man’s House by Andrew McGahan

Whilst ineligible for the 2020 Awards, the Fiction judging panel would like to acknowledge the ‘masterfully constructed and thrilling’ work of The Rich Man’s House. ‘Mixing crime, adventure, horror, and the supernatural, The Rich Man’s House paints a frighteningly believable picture of a geographically monstrous mountain and the man who conquered it.’