Treloar wins 2020 Barbara Jefferis Award

Lucy Treloar has won the 2020 Barbara Jefferis Award for her novel ​Wolfe Island ​(Picador).

The $50,000 award, which is administered by the Australian Society of Authors (ASA), is presented every two years for the ‘best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society’. The shortlisted writers also share in $5000.

Judges Robyn Sheahan-Bright​, ​Jeremy Fisher​ and​ Barbara Horgan​ said Treloar’s novel is ‘of immense contemporary relevance about the redemptive power of female intuition, resistance and resilience’.

‘​Set on a sinking island, in a country riven by racial violence and social inequity, this brilliant novel demonstrates that catastrophes bring out the best and worst in people, and that lawless acts are sometimes necessary in order to save ourselves.’

The winner of the 2018 Barbara Jefferis Award was poet Libby Angel for her debut novel The Trapeze Act (Text).

Category: Awards Local news