The winners of the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards were announced last night at a presentation night held at the State Library of New South Wales. This year marks 40 years of the prestigious prize, which is certainly reflected in the quality of the literary award winners.
Big winners included Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe, a book so beloved across Australia that it surely needs no introduction, and Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia, a fascinating archaeological study of Australia by Billy Griffiths. Accepting the award for Book of the Year, Griffiths said that “I wanted to write this book to help change the conversation that we’ve been having about Australian history — to deepen our understanding of the history of this continent.” Also on the list is the 2018 Miles Franklin Award-winner Michelle de Kretser (The Life to Come), as well as Behrouz Boochani, who received a Special Award for No Friend But the Mountains.
The ceremony also took the time to honour poet Les Murray, who died yesterday aged 80. In a touching moment in his opening address, State Librarian John Vallance called Murray “one of the greatest poets ever to have written in English.” Murray had previously won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry twice.
Scroll down to see all of the winners from the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards!
Book of the Year
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia by Billy Griffiths
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser
People’s Choice Award
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction (Joint Winners)
The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia by Billy Griffiths
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
Interval by Judith Bishop
Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature
Amelia Westlake by Erin Gough
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature (Joint Winners)
Leave Taking by Lorraine Marwood
Dingo by Claire Saxby and Tannya Harricks
Multicultural NSW Award
The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad
Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting
The Almighty Sometimes by Kendall Feaver
Special Award
No Friend But the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani
Indigenous Writers’ Prize
Taboo by Kim Scott
UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting
Jirga by Benjamin Gilmour
NSW Premier’s Translation Prize
Alison Entrekin
You can read more about the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards here.
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Olivia Fricot
Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.
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