Melbourne Prize for Literature finalists announced
The Melbourne Prize Trust has announced the finalists for the triennial Melbourne Prize for Literature.
The finalists are:
Melbourne Prize for Literature ($60,000)
- Jordie Albiston
- Maxine Beneba Clarke
- Pi O
- Christos Tsiolkas
Writers Prize ($15,000)
- Vivian Blaxell
- Eloise Grills
- David Sornig
- Ouyang Yu.
The Melbourne Prize for Literature is awarded every three years to a Victorian writer ‘whose body of published work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature, as well as to cultural and intellectual life’. The prize is presented for the sixth time in 2021, with previous winners being Alison Lester, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Alex Miller, Gerald Murnane and Helen Garner.
The Writers Prize is awarded to the author of an essay (10,000 maximum words) of ‘outstanding originality, literary merit and creative freshness’. Finalists across all categories each receive $1000 and are also in the running for the $3000 Civic Choice Award, which will be determined by a public vote and is now open.
This year’s prize is judged by writers Alice Pung and Declan Fry, and Sydney Writers Festival artistic director Michael Williams.
Earlier this year the Melbourne Prize Trust announced two new prize categories—the $20,000 Professional Development Award and the Writers Prize—would replace the Best Writing Award and the Readings Residency Award. There are no finalists for the Professional Development Award; the winner will be announced along with the other category winners in November.
The winners of the Melbourne Prize for Literature will be announced on 10 November on the Melbourne Prize website.
Category: Awards Local news
