NSW Literary Awards 2026 winners announced

The winners of the 2026 NSW Literary Awards have been announced.

Clare Wright’s Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy (Text Publishing) is the winning title for both the Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction and the overall Book of the Year Award.

Douglas Stewart Prize judges, Maddison Connaughton (chair), Alan Atkinson, Meera Atkinson, Bridget Brennan and Anton Enus, said, “In purpose, form and literary method” the award-winning book is “a highly original piece of work.”

“This book offers the reader a powerful and historically important story replete with vivid human characters from a range of backgrounds,” said the judges. “It is a big book and although it focuses on a relatively small place, Yolŋu Country, it beautifully depicts a vast, slow-moving world. The story builds very gradually, but every paragraph works in creating a drama of pivotal national importance.

“The writing has the feel of yarning rather than argument in any narrow sense, with a consistent focus on relationships – people to people and people to place.”

The winning titles in each category, selected from shortlists announced last month, are:

Book of the Year ($10,000)

• Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions (Clare Wright, Text Publishing)

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)

• The Immigrants (Moreno Giovannoni, Black Inc.)

Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction ($40,000)

• Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions (Clare Wright, Text Publishing)

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)

• How to Emerge (Jill Jones, Vagabond Press)

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)

• Gone (Michel Streich, Thames & Hudson)

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature ($30,000)

• Desert Tracks (Marly Wells & Linda Wells, Magabala Books)

Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)

• The Black Woman of Gippsland (Andrea James, Melbourne Theatre Company/Currency Press)

Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)

• The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Episode 4 (Shaun Grant, Curio Pictures, Screen Australia, Amazon MGM Studios)

Indigenous Writers’ Prize ($30,000)

• Apron-Sorrow / Sovereign-Tea (Natalie Harkin, Wakefield Press)

Multicultural NSW Award ($30,000)

• Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath (S Shakthidharan, Powerhouse Publishing)

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($10,000)

• Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family (Micaela Sahhar, NewSouth Publishing)

The University of Sydney People’s Choice Award ($10,000)

• Rapture (Emily Maguire, Allen & Unwin).

The NSW Literary Awards, previously known as the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, were first presented in 1979. From 2025, the awards have been renamed the NSW Literary Awards.

The University of Sydney People’s Choice Award was voted for from the shortlists for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction.

Books shortlisted for the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing are debuts selected from each category shortlist. Find Me at the Jaffa Gate (Micaela Sahhar, NewSouth Publishing) was nominated twice for the 2026 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, as the nominated title from both the Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction category and the Multicultural NSW Award category.

More information about the awards, and the judges’ comments, are available on the State Library of NSW website.

Category: Awards Local news