Barbara Jefferis Award 2024 shortlist announced
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Barbara Jefferis Award, worth $50,000.
The shortlisted titles are:
- Salonika Burning (Gail Jones, Text)
- Edenglassie (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP)
- Sunbirds (Mirandi Riwoe, UQP)
- Songs for the Dead and the Living (Sara M Saleh, Affirm)
- Days of Innocence and Wonder (Lucy Treloar, Picador)
- Stone Yard Devotional (Charlotte Wood, A&U).
Three highly commended titles were also announced:
- Women & Children (Tony Birch, UQP)
- Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (Shankari Chandran, Ultimo)
- Women I Know (Katerina Gibson, S&S).
Judges Hannah Kent, Jennifer Mills and Melanie Saward said of the shortlist: ‘We found all six books deeply affecting, and many highly memorable for their unswerving demands for social justice and reclamations of power.’
Administered by the ASA, the award celebrates women in literature and is awarded biennially 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 share in $5000.
The 2022 award winner was S L Lim for Revenge: Murder in Three Parts (Transit Lounge).
This year’s winner will be announced at a ceremony in Sydney on 13 November 2024.
Category: Local news
