Novels and collections of short stories including work by Elizabeth Harrower, Charlotte Wood and Amanda Lohrey dominate the long list $50,000 annual Stella Prize which celebrates great books, fiction and non-fiction, by female Australian authors. The only non-fiction book to make the list is Small Acts of Disappearance : Essays on Hunger by Fiona Wright. The full long list is:
Sofie Laguna has won Australia’s $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her book The Eye of the Sheep (Allen & Unwin) about a young boy trying to cope as his family implodes under the pressures of alcoholism and domestic violence. She beat other shortlisted writers Sonya Hartnett’s for Golden Boys, (Penguin Books Australia), Christine…
Over the years I’ve travelled many times to Venice with novelist Donna Leon. I’ve got to know the historic Italian city through the eyes of her enigmatic hero Commissario Brunetti who has a far more nuanced appreciation than the average tourist, or tourist guide. In her latest book, Falling in Love, Leon provides an encore appearance for famed opera soprano Flavia Petrelli who was introduced in Death at La Fenice, the first novel in what has become a 24-book series. Petrelli has returned to Venice to Teatro La Fenice to sing the lead in Puccini’s Tosca. Each night she is mobbed by fans clamoring for their moment in the company of greatness.
Women writers dominate the short list for the Miles Franklin, one of Australia’s most prestigious awards which was announced tonight. Only one man, Craig Sherborne, who wrote Tree Palace, made it through. The short list for the $60,000 prize which celebrates “Australian life in all its glories” is:
The judges’ spokesman, Richard Neville, said the shortlisted novels had “a rich cast of unforgettable characters, and themes ranging from childhood
Joan London (right) wanted to write about the 1950s, “the time of her childhood.” Emily Biffo
wanted to write about a group of people attempting to separate themselves from mainstream culture. And Elen Van Neervan wanted to ask questions about Indigenous governance in Australia, and issues like land rights, identity and love. Each of the six finalists for the Stella Prize for Fiction, the winner of which will be announced next week, has explained the inspiration behind their shortlisted books in a series of revealing interviews with The Guardian.
Maxine Beneba Clark whose collection of short stories Foreign Soil is published by
Hachette, said she was looking at “people trying to find a place for themselves in the world – about the search for a true place to call home, about the things we gain when we migrate, and the all-consuming heartache of our leaving, even as we find the very things we’re looking for”.
Eight women have made the long list for the long list of the Miles Franklin Award for $60,000 prize for Australian Literature won last year by Evie Wyld’s evocative All the Birds, Singing. The shortlist will be announced on 18 May with the eventual winner named on 23 June. The…
Journalist and author Christine Keneally is the only non-fiction author to make it onto the shortlist of Australia’s prestigious The Stella Prize for women writers announced today. Her The Invisible History of the Human Race looks at the role of DNA in shaping us, and our world.
The other five finalists are:
In announcing the shortlist, Stella Prize executive director Aviva Tuffield said: “These six remarkable books explore themes of identity, family, displacement and belonging, with distinctly Australian resonances.’’ The winner will be announced on Tuesday 21 April. Previous recipients of the prize are Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with Birds (2013) and Clare Wright for The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (2014).
Below is the Stella Award’s synopsis of each of the finalists.
There’s not really much to like about Rachel, the girl on the train in Paula Hawkins’s new 
thriller. Her life’s a mess. No job. A broken marriage. No real home. And way too much booze. Unable to admit to herself or her friends that she has been fired, she maintains her daily train commute staring out of the window with a supply of tinned gin and tonic for company.
As the train passes the back of her former home, where ex-husband Tom and new wife Anna now live, she fixates on the beautiful young couple she sees daily in the garden of a neighbouring house. They have the perfect life that should have been hers. When she reads in the newspaper that the woman has
Joan London’s poignant The Golden Age and The House of Grief, Helen Gardner’s harrowing reportage of a crime that shocked the world, are standouts on the longlist for Australia’s prestigious $50,000 Stella Prize, which celebrates women authors, and which was announced yesterday. The longlist for the Prize, which was first awarded in 2013, also includes three debut writers.
Full long list is:
A new year and a whole mouthwatering world of fiction already lined up to be released over the next three months. That’s even if, like me, you still have a pile of must reads left over from 2014. Below are a few due out between now and the end of March.
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (pub. Carcanet) about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley during the drug and gang wars of Jamaica in the 1970s.
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (Random House): Family saga set