Finalists announced for triennial Melbourne Prize for Literature

Five Australian authors—Tony Birch, Gideon Haigh, Alison Lester, Christos Tsiolkas and Alexis Wright—have been selected as finalists for the Melbourne Prize for Literature, which is awarded triennially to an author based in Victoria whose body of published work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life. Another 10 authors were shortlisted for the Best Writing Award for work ‘of outstanding clarity, originality and creativity’.

The shortlists for several Australian literary awards have been announced. They include: the Barbara Jefferis Award 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’; the Waverley Library Award, which recognises the role of research in fiction and nonfiction; and the CHASS Australia Book Prize, which aims to draw international attention to Australia’s achievements in the humanities, arts and social sciences. The longlist has also been announced for the Voss Literary Prize, awarded to the best novel published in Australia in the previous year.

Category: Think Australian awards