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Asylum seeker wins major literary award

Writer, journalist and Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani, currently detained on Manus Island as part of the Australian government’s offshore detention policy for asylum seekers, has won the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature for his nonfiction book No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (Picador) at this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. The judging panel called it a ‘stunning work of art and critical theory which evades simple description’. Other winners include: Elise Valmorbida’s The Madonna of the Mountains (Faber) for fiction, Kate Lilley’s Tilt (Vagabond Press) for poetry and Kim Scott’s Taboo (Picador) for Indigenous writing.

The winners have been announced for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. The winning titles include: Gerald Murnane’s Border Districts (Giramondo) for fiction, Richard McGregor’s Asia’s Reckoning: The Struggle for Global Dominance (Penguin) for nonfiction and Brian Castro’s Blindness and Rage: A Phantasmagoria (Giramondo) for poetry.

The shortlists have been announced for the Indie Book Awards, selected by Australian independent booksellers, and the longlist has also been announced for the Stella Prize for Australian women’s writing.

Other recent award winners include:

 

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Category: Think Australian awards