De Kretser wins 2023 Folio Prize

Australian author Michelle de Kretser has won in the fiction category of the Rathbones Folio Prize, for her novel Scary Monsters (A&U).

In the award’s first year under a new prize structure, winners were named in three categories, fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Each category winner receives £2000 (A$3500) and the overall prize winner receives £30,000 (A$52,500).

Judges described Scary Monsters, chosen from a shortlist announced in February, as ‘a work of beautifully composed genius, two consonant stories work to disorient and entangle, disarm and fascinate, all while implicating the reader’s private experience with those of the lives in the novel. This is a book that troubles and disquiets, dazzles and delights, and with lively wit and intelligence, will also make you laugh darkly.’

American writer and academic Margo Jefferson won the overall prize as well as the nonfiction category for Constructing a Nervous System (Granta), while British-born Ghanaian poet, writer and filmmaker Victoria Adukwei Bulley won the poetry category for Quiet (Faber).

All the books considered for the prize were nominated by the Folio Academy, an international group of writers and critics, and the award is open to any English-language book regardless of form. The winners were announced at a ceremony at the British Library.

Last year, Irish writer Colm Tóibín won the Folio Prize for his novel The Magician (Picador).

For more information, see the Folio Prize website.

Category: Awards Local news