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Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Award (1993-)
or ACT Book of the Year Award
Subcategory of Awards Australian Awards
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History

The ACT Government offers the ACT Book of the Year Award annually for excellence in literature. The Award recognises quality contemporary Australian literary works including fiction, non-fiction and poetry, by ACT-based authors published in the previous calendar year.

The author may include an editor or translator who, in the opinion of the judges, has made a substantial and creative contribution to the original material from which the book is derived.

Source: http://www.arts.act.gov.au/funding/types-of-funding/act-book-of-the-year-award Sighted: 10/12/2013.

Notes

  • The ACT Book of the Year Award 'recognises quality contemporary works and the contribution the book makes to Canberra's literary and cultural life.'

    (Source: ACT government Arts publication, Arts Capital News, December 2003))

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2023

Indexed selectively. Also shortlisted: Legitimate Sexpectations: The Power of Sex-ed by Katrina Marson.
winner Frank Bongiorno for 'Dreamers and Schemers'.

Year: 2022

Indexed selectively. Also finalist: Failures of Command: The death of Private Robert Poate, by Hugh Poate.
winner y separately published work icon Believe in Me Lucy Neave , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2021 21861257 2021 single work novel

'An unforgettable and profound novel about three generations of one family and the healing power of understanding where you've come from.

'As a teenager in the 1970s, Sarah is forced to leave her home in upstate New York to accompany a missionary to Idaho. When she falls pregnant, she is despatched to relatives in Sydney, who place her in a home for unmarried mothers. Years later her daughter, Bet, pieces together her mother's life story, hoping to understand her better. As she learns more about Sarah's past, Bet struggles to come to terms with her own history and identity, yet is determined to make peace with Sarah's choices before it's too late.

'Lucy Neave's moving and deeply personal second novel, Believe in Me, explores the relationships between mothers and their children across three generations of one family. The book questions what we can ever truly know of our parents' early lives, even as their experiences weave ineffably into our identities and destinies.' (Publication summary)

Year: 2021

Indexed selectively. Highly commended: Bernard Collaery's Oil Under Troubled Water: Australia's Timor Sea Intrigue.
winner y separately published work icon Spinoza's Overcoat : Travels with Writers and Poets Subhash Jaireth , Yarraville : Transit Lounge , 2020 18416119 2020 selected work essay travel

'‘It starts to rain as I step out of my hotel ….’ So begins Subhash Jaireth’s striking collection of essays on the writers, and their writing, that have enriched his own life. The works of Franz Kafka, Marina Tsvetaeva, Mikhail Bulgakov, Paul Celan, Hiromi Ito, Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza and others ignite in him the urge to travel (both physically and in spirit), almost like a pilgrim, to the places where such writers were born or died or wrote. In each essay a new emotional plane is reached revealing enticing connections. As a novelist, poet, essayist and translator born into a multilingual environment, Jaireth truly understands the power of words across languages and their integral connections to the life of the body and the spirit. Drawing on years of research, translation and travel Spinoza’s Overcoat – and its illuminations of loss, mortality and the reverie of writing – will linger with readers.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2020

winner y separately published work icon Ghost Bird Lisa Fuller , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2019 16861510 2019 single work novel young adult

'Remember daughter, the world is a lot bigger than anyone knows. There are things that science may never explain. Maybe some things that shouldn’t be explained.

'Stacey and Laney are twins – mirror images of each other – and yet they’re as different as the sun and the moon. Stacey works hard at school, determined to get out of their small town. Laney skips school and sneaks out of the house to meet her boyfriend. But when Laney disappears one night, Stacey can’t believe she’s just run off without telling her.

'As the days pass and Laney doesn’t return, Stacey starts dreaming of her twin. The dreams are dark and terrifying, difficult to understand and hard to shake, but at least they tell Stacey one key thing – Laney is alive. It’s hard for Stacey to know what’s real and what’s imagined and even harder to know who to trust. All she knows for sure is that Laney needs her help.

'Stacey is the only one who can find her sister. Will she find her in time?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2019

winner y separately published work icon Book of Colours Robyn Cadwallader , Sydney South : HarperCollins Australia , 2018 13526246 2018 single work novel historical fiction

'London, 1321: In a small shop in Paternoster Row, three people are drawn together around the creation of a magnificent book, an illuminated manuscript of prayers, a book of hours. Even though the commission seems to answer the aspirations of each one of them, their own desires and ambitions threaten its completion. As each struggles to see the book come into being, it will change everything they have understood about their place in the world. In many ways, this is a story about power - it is also a novel about the place of women in the roiling and turbulent world of the early fourteenth century; what power they have, how they wield it, and just how temporary and conditional it is.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Works About this Award

The 2016 ACT Book of the Year Shortlist Has a Wide Variety of Subjects Ron Cerabona , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: Brisbane Times , 26 August 2016;
'The shortlist for the 2016 ACT Book of the Year was announced on Friday at the National Library of Australia by ACT Arts Minister Chris Bourke on the first day of the inaugural Canberra Writers Festival. ...'
Fact and Fiction Features on Book of the Year Shortlist Natasha Rudra , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 20 November 2014; (p. 9)
Writer Walks Off With Top Accolade Natasha Rudra , 2008 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 17 December 2008; (p. 3)
Big Win for Avid Reader Helen Musa , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 13 December 2006; (p. 4)
Author's Sense of 'Public Duty' Scoops ACT Literary Award Catherine Naylor , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 9 December 2005; (p. 9)
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