Stella Prize 2020 longlist announced

The longlist for the 2020 Stella Prize, worth $50,000, has been announced.

The longlisted titles are:

• Lucky Ticket (Joey Bui, Text)
• Songspirals: Sharing women’s wisdom of country through songlines (Gay’wu Group of Women, A&U)
• See What You Made Me Do (Jess Hill, Black Inc.)
• The House of Youssef (Yumna Kassab, Giramondo)
• Diving into Glass (Caro Llewellyn, Hamish Hamilton)
• When One Person Dies the Whole World is Over (Mandy Ord, Brow Books)
• There was Still Love (Favel Parrett, Hachette)
• Here Until August (Josephine Rowe, Black Inc.)
• This is How We Change the Ending (Vikki Wakefield, Text)
• The Yield (Tara June Winch, Hamish Hamilton)
• The Weekend (Charlotte Wood, A&U)
• Paper Emperors (Sally Young, NewSouth).

Chair of judges and Stella Prize co-founder Louise Swinn said the longlist is ‘exciting and varied’, comprising a graphic memoir, a YA novel, Indigenous stories told in Aboriginal songspirals, a personal memoir, short stories, and fiction and nonfiction.

‘The 12 books we’ve chosen are all ambitious texts—bold and unapologetic,’ said Swinn. ‘This is more than just a snapshot of this time and place, it is an off-road adventure that will force you to think and rethink.’

This year’s prize is judged by Swinn, journalist Monica Attard, journalist Jack Latimore, editor Zoya Patel and poet Leni Shilton.

The shortlist will be announced on 6 March and the winner of the prize will be announced at a ceremony in Sydney on 8 April.

The Stella Prize is presented to the best work of fiction or nonfiction by an Australian woman published in the previous calendar year. Vicki Laveau-Harvie won the 2019 prize for her memoir The Erratics (Fourth Estate).

Category: Awards Local news