Moorhouse wins OzCo Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award

1 November 2013 Books+Publishing

Novelist Frank Moorhouse is the recipient of the 2013 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

The $50,000 award is presented annually by the Australia Council for the Arts to recognise ‘the achievements of eminent writers who have made outstanding and lifelong contributions to Australian literature’. In previous years, the award was called the Australia Council for the Arts’ Writers’ Emeritus Award.

Moorhouse, who will be presented with the award at a ceremony at the State Library of New South Wales on 21 November, is the author of numerous novels, stories and essays, including the ‘Edith’ trilogy (Vintage). He won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for the second ‘Edith’ book Dark Palace in 2001 and was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1985 for services to literature. His most recent novel Cold Light (Vintage) was published in 2012.

Chair of the Australia Council’s Literature Strategy Panel Sophie Cunningham said in a statement that Moorhouse has been recognised for his ‘highly influential, always timely and extraordinary contributions to Australian literature over so many years’. ‘The assessors wanted to recognise Frank for his lifetime of work as a writer, which started more than five decades ago in 1957, with a short story published in the Southerly journal at the age of 18,’ said Cunningham.

Previous winners of the Australia Council Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award include Herb Wharton in 2012, Robert Gray in 2011 and Peter Kocan in 2010.

Category: Local news