Magarey Medal for Biography 2026 longlist announced

The longlist for the 2026 Magarey Medal for Biography has been announced.

Longlisted titles are:

• The Fearless Beatrice Faust (Judith Brett, Text)
• Max Dupain: A Portrait (Helen Ennis, 4th Estate)
• Joan Lindsay: The Hidden Life of the Woman Who Wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock (Brenda Niall, Text)
• One Free Woman: The True Story of Convict Hannah Rigby (Jane Smith, Big Sky)
• Code of Silence: How Australian Women Helped Win the War (Diana Thorp, Monash University Publishing)
• Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower (Susan Wyndham, NewSouth).

The Magarey Medal for Biography is awarded biennially “to the female author who has published the work judged to be the best biographical writing on an Australian subject”.

The winner of the 2024 award was Ann-Marie Priest for My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood (La Trobe University Press).

More information about the award is available on the Association for the Study of Australian Literature website.

Category: Awards Local news