PM’s Literary Awards 2014 winners announced

The winners of 2014 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards were announced on 8 December at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

The winners in each category are:

Fiction (joint winners)

• A World of Other People (Steven Carroll, Fourth Estate)
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Richard Flanagan, Vintage)

Nonfiction (joint winners)

• Moving among Strangers (Gabrielle Carey, UQP)
• Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John (Helen Trinca, Text)

Australian history (joint winners)

• Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War (Joan Beaumont, A&U)
• Australia’s Secret War: How Unionists Sabotaged Our Troops in World War II (Hal G P Colebatch, Quadrant Books)

Poetry

• Drag Down to Unlock or Place an Emergency Call (Melinda Smith, Pitt Street Poetry)

Young adult fiction

• The Incredible Here and Now (Felicity Castagna, Giramondo)

Children’s fiction

• Silver Buttons (Bob Graham, Walker Books).

The winners each receive $80,000 tax-free, which is halved in the instance of joint winners. The shortlisted authors each receive $5000 tax-free.

The Australian reports that the Prime Minister ‘intervened’ in the fiction award, selecting Flanagan’s novel as a joint winner after the fiction judges unanimously recommended Carroll’s novel.

Several authors announced plans to donate their prize-winnings, with Flanagan donating $40,000 to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and Bob Graham donating $10,000 to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott also announced the government’s plans to establish a new Book Council of Australia.

More than 500 books were entered into this year’s Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. To see the shortlists, click here. For more information about the awards, click here.