Garner wins Baillie Gifford

In the UK, author Helen Garner has won the £50,000 (A$100,700) Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction for How to End a Story: Collected Diaries (Text).

The winning title was described by chair of judges Robbie Millen as a “remarkable, addictive” volume.

Judges said, “How to End a Story reveals the inner life of a woman in love, a mother, a friend and a formidable writer at work. Told with devastating honesty, steel-sharp wit and an ecstatic attention to the details of everyday life, it offers all the satisfactions of a novel alongside the enthralling intimacy of something written in private and just for pleasure.”

Millen added, “After the mysterious alchemy of the judging process, Helen Garner emerged as our unanimous choice. All 6 judges agreed that How to End a Story, the first diaries to win the Baillie Gifford Prize, is a remarkable, addictive book.

“Garner takes the diary form, mixing the intimate, the intellectual and the everyday, to new heights. [The book] gives its readers a fascinating insight into the creative reality of a writer’s life – the insecurities, the doubts, the flashes of ego.”

Garner’s latest work of nonfiction is The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder Trial, co-authored with Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein (Text). In 2023, Garner was announced as recipient of the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) Medal.

Photo: Darren James.

Category: News