Allinson, Brennan win Age Book of the Year awards

The winners of the 2022 Age Book of the Year Award have been announced.

Miles Allinson won the fiction award for his second novel In Moonland (Scribe), while Bernadette Brennan won the nonfiction award for Leaping Into Waterfalls: The enigmatic Gillian Mears (A&U). Each winner receives $10,000 courtesy of the Copyright Agency.

Writers Bram Presser and Susan Wyndham judged the fiction category, describing In Moonland as ‘a novel about the ways we yearn to belong; a deeply moving excavation of faith, autonomy, identity and, ultimately, mortality. Allinson writes with great warmth and insight, his exquisite prose offering light to even the darkest corners of his characters’ hearts.’

The nonfiction judges, critic Simon Caterson and academic Joy Damousi, described Brennan’s biography of the late writer Gillian Mears as ‘profound and haunting’. ‘The canvas that is drawn is wide and broad with a nuanced exploration of various themes including the creative process and the practice of writing, the intensity of familial relationships, the drive of ambition and recognition, as well as beautifully capturing the Australian literary scene of the late-20th and early-21st centuries.’

Chosen from shortlists announced in August, the winners were revealed during the opening night event of the 2022 Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF). Allinson and Brennan will appear at a special MWF event with Age books editor Jason Steger on Friday, 9 September.

First presented in 1974, the Age Book of the Year was most recently presented to Robbie Arnott for The Rain Heron (Text) in 2021 after a nine-year hiatus.

Category: Awards Local news