The Winners of the the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2018 were announced this morning at Parliament House … an event I followed via their Twitter Live Feed … and it contained the BEST of ALL POSSIBLE news that Gerald Murnane won the Fiction prize. I haven’t read the novel, so perhaps my approval is cheeky, but Murnane has been far too under-rated over the years and it’s high time he was recognised for his contribution to Australian letters! Sure, he can be obscure, but that makes him interesting – even fun – to read because of the mesmerising way he interrogates our emotional interiors/landscapes in some sort of alignment with a physical interior/landscape, that feels Australian but is also mythical in its lack of specificity.

Below is the shortlist, with the winner marked in bold.

Fiction

• A long way from home, Peter Carey (Penguin Random House): on my TBR (Lisa’s review)
• Border districts, Gerald Murnane (Giramondo): on my TBR (Lisa’s review)
• First person, Richard Flanagan (Penguin Random House): my review
• Taboo, Kim Scott (Pan Macmillan): on my TBR (Lisa’s review)
• The life to come, Michelle de Kretser (Allen & Unwin): my review (and winner of this year’s Miles Franklin Award)

The pre-announcement Twitter feed said “beautifully told stories capturing a broad range of themes”. That tells us a lot doesn’t it!

Poetry

• Archipelago, Adam Aitken (Vagabond Press)
• Blindness and rage: A phantasmagoria, Brian Castro (Giramondo Publishing) (Lisa’s review)
• Chatelaine, Bonny Cassidy (Giramondo Publishing)
• Domestic interior, Fiona Wright (Giramondo Publishing)
• Transparencies, Stephen Edgar (Black Pepper)

This time the twitter feed said that “this year’s shortlistees prove that poetry is very much alive and a vibrant art form in Australia”. Hmm … any different from last year’s I wonder?

The winner is another grand man of Australian letters whom I must get onto my blog soon – he’s one of my gaps.

Non-fiction

• Asia’s reckoning, Richard McGregor (Penguin Random House UK)
• Mischka’s war: A European odyssey of the 1940s, Sheila Fitzpatrick (University of Melbourne Publishing)
• No front line: Australia’s special forces at war in Afghanistan, Chris Masters (Allen & Unwin)
• The library: A catalogue of wonders, Stuart Kells (Text Publishing)
• Unbreakable, Jelena Dokic and Jessica Halloran (Penguin Random House): my report of an In Conversation event

And the pre-announcement twitter feed said, “The shortlisted books reflect our place in history and the modern world.” Hmm … again. I think I’ll forget the Twitter feeds.

Australian history

• Beautiful Balts: From Displaced Persons to New Australians, Jayne Persian (NewSouth Publishing)
• Hidden in plain view: The Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney, Paul Irish (NewSouth Publishing)
• Indigenous and other Australians since 1901, Timothy Rowse (NewSouth Publishing)
• John Curtin’s war: The coming of war in the Pacific, and reinventing Australia, Volume 1, John Edwards (Penguin Random House)
• The enigmatic Mr Deakin, Judith Brett (Text Publishing)

Children’s literature

• Feathers, by Phil Cummings and Phil Lesnie (Scholastic Australia)
• Figgy takes the city, Tamsin Janu (Scholastic Australia)
• Hark, it’s me, Ruby Lee!, Lisa Shanahan and Binny Talib (Hachette Australia)
• Pea pod lullaby, Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King (Allen & Unwin)
• Storm whale, Sarah Brennan and Jane Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

Young Adult literature

• Living on Hope Street, Demet Divaroren (Allen & Unwin)
• My lovely Frankie, Judith Clarke (Allen & Unwin)
• Ruben, Bruce Whatley (Scholastic Australia)
• The ones that disappeared, Zana Fraillon (Hachette Australia)
• This is my song, Richard Yaxley (Scholastic Australia)

Thoughts, anyone?