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Victorian Prize for Literature (2011-)
Subcategory of Victorian Premier's Literary Awards
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Notes

  • The Victorian Prize for Literature was inaugurated in 2011 by the Victorian premier, the Hon. Ted Baillieu. The award, initially valued at $100,000, is for the overall winner chosen from among the category winners in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2024

winner y separately published work icon Chinese Fish Grace Yee , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2023 26023166 2023 single work novel

'A family saga narrated in multiple voices and laced with archival fragments and scholarly interjections, Chinese Fish offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of women and girls in a community that has historically been characterised as both a ‘yellow peril’ menace and an exotic ‘model minority’.'(Publication summary)

Year: 2023

winner y separately published work icon Cold Enough for Snow Jessica Au , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2022 23614222 2022 single work novel

'A novel about the relationship between life and art, and between language and the inner world - how difficult it is to speak truly, to know and be known by another, and how much power and friction lies in the unsaid, especially between a mother and daughter.

'A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafes and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother's family in Hong Kong, and the daughter's own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken?

'Cold Enough for Snow is a reckoning and an elegy: with extraordinary skill, Au creates an enveloping atmosphere that expresses both the tenderness between mother and daughter, and the distance between them.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2022

winner y separately published work icon Black and Blue : A Memoir of Racism and Resilience Veronica Gorrie , Melbourne : Scribe , 2021 20519254 2021 single work autobiography

'The story of an Aboriginal woman who worked as a police officer and fought for justice both within and beyond the Australian police force.

'A proud Kurnai woman, Veronica Gorrie grew up dauntless, full of cheek and a fierce sense of justice. After watching her friends and family suffer under a deeply compromised law-enforcement system, Gorrie signed up for training to become one of a rare few Aboriginal police officers in Australia. In her ten years in the force, she witnessed appalling institutional racism and sexism, and fought past those things to provide courageous and compassionate service to civilians in need, many Aboriginal themselves.

'With a great gift for storytelling and a wicked sense of humour, Gorrie frankly and movingly explores the impact of racism on her family and her life, the impact of intergenerational trauma resulting from cultural dispossession, and the inevitable difficulties of making her way as an Aboriginal woman in the white-and-male-dominated workplace of the police force.

'Black and Blue is a memoir of remarkable fortitude and resilience, told with wit, wisdom, and great heart.' (Publication summary)

Year: 2021

winner y separately published work icon The Animals in that Country Laura Jean McKay , Melbourne : Scribe , 2020 18465113 2020 single work novel fantasy

'Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She’s never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue.

'Then one day, disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country. This is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals — first mammals, then birds and insects, too. But as the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds.

'When Jean’s infected son, Lee, takes off with Kimberly, heading south, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin. Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo riding shotgun, they find themselves in a stark, strange world in which the animal apocalypse has only further isolated people from other species.

'Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, The Animals in That Country asks what it means to be human — and what would happen, for better or worse, if we finally understood what animals were saying.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2020

winner y separately published work icon Counting and Cracking S. Shakthidharan , 2019 Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2020 14530930 2019 single work drama

'On the banks of the Georges River, Radha and her son Siddhartha release the ashes of Radha’s mother – their final connection to the past, to Sri Lanka and its struggles. Now they are free to embrace their lives in Australia. Then a phone call from Colombo brings the past spinning back to life, and we are plunged into an epic story of love and political strife, of home and exile, of parents and children

'Counting and Cracking is a big new play about Australia like none we’ve seen before. This is life on a large canvas, so we are leaving Belvoir St and building a Sri Lankan town hall inside Sydney Town Hall. Sixteen actors play four generations of a family, from Colombo to Pendle Hill, in a story about Australia as a land of refuge, about Sri Lanka’s efforts to remain united, about reconciliation within families, across countries, across generations.'

Source: Belvoir St Theatre.

Works About this Award

Melbourne Author Jessica Au Wins $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature with Cold Enough for Snow Hannah Story , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , February 2023;

'Melbourne writer Jessica Au has won Australia's richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (VPLAs) for her short but "masterful" novel Cold Enough for Snow.'  (Introduction)

Kick up the Arts Would Benefit Us All Chips Mackinolty , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: NT News , 14 February 2016; (p. 12)
Scott Wins Victoria's Top Book Prize Jason Steger , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 8 September 2011; (p. 10)
New Prize Makes Victoria Home to Australia's Richest Writing Award Jason Steger , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 22 April 2011; (p. 5)
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