‘Against Disappearance’ wins SPN 2023 Book of the Year

The Small Press Network (SPN) 2023 Book of the Year (BOTY) has been awarded to Against Disappearance: Essays on memory, edited by Leah Jing Mcintosh and Adolfo Aranjuez, and published by Liminal in conjunction with Pantera Press.

Against Disappearance is a collection of essays by First Nations writers and writers of colour from the Liminal & Pantera Press Nonfiction Prize longlist.

‘This collection brings together writers from across a variety of disciplines and thought, that reveals its themes of identity, love, family, home in fragments, traversing intellect and object, a tapestry that is felt as much as read,’ said judges Penni Russon, Bec Kavanagh and Tierney Khan. ‘It is exceptional to read, and exciting to imagine a future of Australian publishing inspired by works such as this one.’ The judges said the book was ‘exactly the kind of invigorating nonfiction that small, risk-taking publications like Liminal, excel at … a physically beautiful collection, presented with an understated sophistication that reflects those same qualities in the works’.

Founded in 2016, Liminal is an ‘anti-racist literary platform that supports and elevates talented writers and artists in so-called Australia’. McIntosh is a critic, researcher and the founding editor of Liminal. Through the Liminal project, she has published a collection of longform interviews, writing and art by Asian Australian artists. Aranjuez is an editor, writer, speaker and dancer, and a member of Liminal’s editorial team since its inception. He has worked across periodical and book publishing for 15 years.

The BOTY Award is an annual prize that ‘highlights authorial and publishing excellence by small and independent publishers’. Open to any book released by an SPN member during the previous calendar year, the award provides recognition and promotional opportunities.

Chosen from a shortlist of six titles, the 2023 winner was announced at the SPN Independent Publishing Conference on 24 November. Last year’s winner was Eleanor Jackson’s poetry collection Gravidity and Parity (Vagabond).

Category: Awards Local news