Hall, Blaine win 2025 Age Book of the Year awards

The winners of the 2025 Age Book of the Year awards have been announced.

Rodney Hall won the fiction award for his novel Vortex (Picador), and Lech Blaine won the nonfiction prize for Australian Gospel: A Family Saga (Black Inc.).

The winners, chosen from shortlists announced earlier this month, were announced at the opening night of the Melbourne Writers Festival by Age editor Patrick Elligett. Each winner receives $10,000.

Fiction judges were Age and Sydney Morning Herald Canberra bureau chief Michelle Griffin and author and critic Bram Presser; and nonfiction judges were reviewer and Caritas Australia mission director Michael McGirr and author and director Lorin Clarke. Judges praised the writers for ‘writing books that stay with readers long after their final pages’.

Last year’s winners were Tony Birch for Women & Children (UQP) and Ross McMullin for Life So Full of Promise: Further Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generations (Scribe).

More information is available on the Age website.

Pictured [left–right]: Rodney Hall and Lech Blaine.

Photo credit: Wayne Taylor (for Lech Blaine).

Category: Awards Local news