‘The Erratics’ wins Stella Prize

Vicki Laveau-Harvie has won Australia’s prestigious Stella Prize for women writers for her memoir The Erratics (Fourth Estate), which tells the story of an estranged daughter who journeys home to Canada to care for her mother who suffers from an undiagnosed mental illness. Judging panel chair Louise Swinn said The Erratics ‘mines the psychological damage wrought on a nuclear family by a monstrous personality’ with ‘constant wit’ and an ability to ‘see all viewpoints’.

Trent Dalton’s debut novel Boy Swallows Universe (HarperCollins) has been named Book of the Year at the independent bookseller-voted Indie Book Awards. Other Indie Book Award-winners include Markus Zusak’s novel Bridge of Clay (Picador) and Chloe Hooper’s nonfiction book The Arsonist (Hamish Hamilton).

Several Australian books are in the running for UK awards. Sarah Krasnostein’s multi-award-winning biography of trauma cleaner Sandra Pankhurst, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay and Disaster (Text), has been shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize; and Peter Carey’s novel A Long Way from Home (Penguin) has been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Category: Think Australian awards