WA Premier's Awards Adds to Kim Scott's Prize Tally
The winners of the 2010 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards were announced in Perth on 30 September 2011. The awards added a further accolade for Kim Scott's That Deadman Dance.
The judges chose Scott's novel for the Fiction Award, saying it 'reveals the layers of complexity surrounding first contact between indigenous and settler cultures and how these are mediated through language. Set on the south coast of Western Australia and drawing on historical and contemporary Noongar language and culture, this novel reaches out to all readers by providing multiple points of view, and offering contemporary Australia an important new perspective on its complicated colonial past.'
Other winners include Tommy Murphy's Gwen in Purgatory (Scripts), Mark Tredinnick's Fire Diary (Poetry) and Jim Davidson's A Three-Cornered Life: The Historian W. K. Hancock (Non Fiction). This year also saw the inauguration of a People's Choice Award; the popular winner was Lisa Lang's Utopian Man.
A full list of all winners, shortlisted works and judges' comments can be found on the State Library of Western Australia's website.