The Age Book of the Year 2026 shortlists announced
The shortlists for the 2026 Age Book of the Year awards have been announced.
Shortlisted works in each category are:
Fiction
- Fierceland (Omar Musa, Penguin)
- The Immigrants (Moreno Giovannoni, Black Inc.)
- Out of the Woods (Gretchen Shirm, Transit Lounge)
- A Piece of Red Cloth (Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs & Djawa Burarrwanga, A&U)
- Salvage (Jennifer Mills)
- You Must Remember This (Sean Wilson, Affirm).
Nonfiction
- Blue Poles (Tom McIlroy, Hachette)
- Gutsy Girls (Josie McSkimming, UQP)
- Mr and Mrs Gould (Grantlee Kieza, ABC Books)
- The Red House (Kate Wild, A&U)
- The Shortest History of Australia (Mark McKenna, Black Inc.)
- A Woman’s Eye, Her Art (Drusilla Modjeska, Penguin).
Judges for this year’s awards are author and critic Bram Presser and essayist and critic Beejay Silcox (fiction), as well as the Age and Sydney Morning Herald’s Canberra bureau chief Michelle Griffin and reviewer and Caritas Australia mission director Michael McGirr (nonfiction).
Winners will be announced during the Melbourne Writers Festival opening night on 7 May, with each category winner to receive $10,000.
In 2025, Rodney Hall won the fiction award for Vortex (Picador) and Lech Blaine won the nonfiction prize for Australian Gospel (Black Inc.).
Category: Awards Local news
