Milligan wins 2017 Walkley Book Award for ‘Cardinal’

Investigative journalist Louise Milligan has won the 2017 Walkley Book Award for Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell (MUP).

Milligan’s book was chosen from a shortlist of three.

The judges described Cardinal as a ‘brave book’ that ‘tackles an extremely difficult and sensitive subject where the stakes are high and vested interests powerful and influential’. ‘Cardinal is distinguished by the author’s dogged investigative powers, by the careful piecing together and cross-referencing of events and victims’ stories to impressive effect,’ said the judges.

Cardinal was published in May, with a reprint ordered in the same month following extensive media coverage and ‘through the roof’ sales. The book was voluntarily removed from Victorian bookstores after Pell was charged by Victorian Police in June for historical sexual assault offences.

Author Helen Garner won the feature writing award (over 4000 words) for her Monthly essay ‘Why She Broke: The Woman, her Children and the Lake’, which explored the case of Akon Guode, who drove her children into a lake in Melbourne’s south-west in 2015.

The Wheeler Centre and Behind the Wire won the radio/audio feature award for their podcast ‘The Messenger’, which was constructed from voice messages recorded on Manus Island by Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Muhamat and sent to Melbourne journalist Michael Green.

To see the full list of winners, click here.

Category: Awards Local news