Shortlists for 2020 NSW Premier’s History Awards announced

The State Library of NSW (SLNSW) has announced the shortlists for the 2020 NSW Premier’s History Awards, worth $15,000 each.

The shortlisted works in each category are:

Australian history prize

• Bedlam at Botany Bay (James Dunk, NewSouth)
• British India, White Australia: Overseas Indians, intercolonial relations and the empire (Kama Maclean, NewSouth)
• The Shelf Life of Zora Cross (Cathy Perkins, Monash University Publishing)

General history prize

• Amboina 1623: Fear and conspiracy on the edge of empire (Adam Clulow, Columbia University Press)
• The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three lives in an age of empire (Kate Fullagar, Yale University Press)
• Sundowner of the Skies: The story of Oscar Garden, the forgotten aviator (Mary Garden, New Holland)

NSW regional and community history prize 

• Surviving New England: A history of Aboriginal resistance and resilience through the first forty years of colonial apocalypse (Callum Clayton-Dixon, Nēwara Aboriginal Corporation)
• Hotel Kosciusko: The history and legacy of Australia’s first planned alpine resort (Donald A Johnston, Perisher Historical Society)
• Griffin Rising: The first decade of the Griffin Theatre Company 1979-1988 (John Senczuk, Janus Imprint)

Young people’s history prize

• Pirate Boy of Sydney Town (Jackie French, HarperCollins)
• The Good Son: A story from the First World War, told in miniature (Pierre-Jacques Ober, Jules Ober & Felicity Coonan, Candlewick Press)
• Haywire—The Dunera Boys: Australia’s Second World War #2 (Claire Saxby, Scholastic)

Digital history prize

• ‘Experiment Street — the true history of a city lane’ (Noëlle Janaczewska, ABC Radio National’s The History Listen)
• The Eleventh: Introduction, episodes 1 and 6 (Alex Mann, Nikki Tugwell & Tim Roxburgh, ABC Audio Studios)
• History Lab Season Three: The Law’s Way of Knowing, podcast episodes ‘Making a Fortune‘ and ‘Reading the Signs‘ (Tamson Pietsch, Emma Lancaster, Alana Piper, Trish Luker, Zoe Ferguson, Olivia Rosenman, Belinda Lopez, Sarah Mashman, Julia Carr-Catzel & Allison Chan, Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney).

The awards are judged by an independent committee of academics, historians and other sector professionals who have been appointed by the premier, the minister for the arts or their delegates. This year, eight judges considered 139 entries across the five prize categories.

The winners will be announced on 4 September. For more information, click here.

Category: Awards Local news