Arnott, Walton, Leal win 2025 ARA Historical Novel Prize
Robbie Arnott and Tasma Walton will share the $100,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize in the adult category for their works Dusk (Picador) and I Am Nannertgarrook (Bundyi) respectively, while Suzanne Leal has won the $30,000 children and young adult (CYA) category for The Year We Escaped (HarperCollins).
Emily Maguire won the inaugural Reader’s Choice Award ($5000), where readers were invited to vote for their favourite novel on the adult fiction longlist, for her novel Rapture.
Presented by the Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA) at a ceremony at The Sydney Mint last night, the awards recognise “the outstanding literary talents of novelists who illuminate stories of the past, providing a window into our present and the future”. The prize was established in 2020 and is open to historical fiction books from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Angelo Loukakis, chair of the adult judging panel, which also included Jane Harrison, Rashida Murphy, Stephanie Parkyn and Scott Whitmont, said, “In the democracy of letters there can, and should be, occasionally more than one ‘winner’. For the judges of the HNSA Adult category the occasion this time is in having two very different novels that displayed qualities that made it impossible to elevate one above the other. The judges do not however see this outcome as a problem, but rather a moment for celebration – of the sheer diversity across this year’s entries, and of the individual achievements of our two winners.”
Of I Am Nannertgarrook, Loukakis said, “Tasma Walton challenges us with an empathic narrative that engages our consciences via the truths of First Nations’ historical experience. She relates a story of abduction and suffering, resilience and survival – and tells of the power that lies in Indigenous remembering and belonging.”
Of Dusk, Loukakis said, “Robbie Arnott boldly builds on the historical fact of white Australia’s destructive exploitation of the land and lifeforms in an earlier time – to imagine and present us with a skilfully narrated, symbolic as well as grounded tale of the role of personal ambition and private gain in this continent’s fate.”
The CYA judging panel, which included Mark Macleod (chair), Rebecca Lim and Belinda Murrell, said of The Year We Escaped, “The fast-paced storytelling doesn’t waste a word, as it gives an impeccably researched and compelling account of resistance, in which the ingenuity and courage of young people and the importance of working together are the keys to survival.”
The winners were chosen from shortlists released last month.
Last year’s winners were Melissa Lucashenko for Edenglassie (UQP) and Beverley McWilliams for Spies in the Sky (illus by Martina Heiduczek, Pantera).
Category: Awards Local news
