Lanagan, McFarlane joint winners of 2014 Barbara Jefferis Award

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan (A&U) and The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane (Penguin) are the joint winners of the 2014 Barbara Jefferis Award.

The prize is awarded every two years for ‘the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society’. This is the first time it has been jointly awarded.

The value of the award, which is administered by the Australian Society of Authors, has increased to $50,000 in 2014 and Lanagan and McFarlane will each receive $25,000, with $1000 going to each of the other shortlisted authors.

View the 2014 shortlist here.

In 2012 Anna Funder won the prize, then worth $35,000, for her novel All that I Am (Penguin).