Giovannoni wins inaugural Deborah Cass Prize

Moreno Giovannoni has won Writers Victoria’s inaugural Deborah Cass Prize for emerging writers from migrant backgrounds for his manuscript extract ‘Tales from San Ginese’.

Giovannoni’s work was chosen from a shortlist of 10. He receives $3000 and a three-month mentorship with an established writer. Black Inc. will ‘consider the resulting manuscript’ for publication.

‘Tales of San Ginese’ is set in an agricultural village in Italy where ‘fatalism rules, God lingers in the minds of its 120 inhabitants, and many dream of California, Argentina or Australia. Some go and come back disillusioned, then wish they had never returned, and those who never leave wish they had’.

Two other pieces, Melanie Cheng’s ‘Australia Day’ and Emilia Nazari’s ‘The Autumn Limes of Amoo’, were highly commended by judges Alice Pung, Christos Tsiolkas and Tony Ayres.

For more information about the award, visit the Writers Victoria website here.

Category: Local news