Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Winners Announced

Photo: outinperth

Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley tonight named Boochani the winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature from a shortlist of 28 exceptional works published in Australia last year.

In addition to the overall prize, No Friend But the Mountains also took out the Prize for Non-Fiction.

Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish Iranian writer, poet, journalist and filmmaker who has been held on Manus Island since 2013.

His award was accepted by the book’s translator Omid Tofighian, who worked with Boochani over five years to bring the stories to life.

In other categories, Kendall Feaver’s play about mental health, The Almighty Sometimes, took out the Prize for Drama; Elise Valmorbida’s sixth novel, The Madonna of the Mountains, won the Prize for Fiction and Kate Lilley claimed the Prize for Poetry for Tilt.

The Prize for Writing for Young Adults went to siblings Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina for the thrilling ghost story Catching Teller Crow, and Kim Scott, who received the first Victorian Prize for Literature in 2011, won this year’s Prize for Indigenous Writing for Taboo, a story of survival and renewal set in rural Western Australia.

The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript went to Victoria Hannan for Kokomo, which judges described as ‘a disarmingly profound novel about the violence and the softness of navigating the world as a young woman’. This award has launched the careers of writers such as Jane Harper, Graeme Simsion, Maxine Beneba Clarke.

Over 1000 people voted for the People’s Choice Award, and this year’s winner was Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee.

Established in 1985, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards celebrate the best in contemporary writing, presented by the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas.