Giovannoni, Wild win 2026 Age Book of the Year Awards

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name of an Indigenous person who has died.

The winners of the 2026 Age Book of the Year Awards have been announced.

Moreno Giovannoni won the fiction category for his novel The Immigrants (Black Inc.) and Kate Wild won the nonfiction award for The Red House (A&U).

The winners, chosen from shortlists announced in April, were announced by Age deputy editor Orietta Guerrera at the opening night of the Melbourne Writers Festival on Thursday, 7 May.

Giovannoni and Wild each receive $10,000.

The fiction judges – author and critic Bram Presser and essayist and critic Beejay Silcox – said of The Immigrants: “Just when you think you have its measure, the book pivots in some delightful, unexpected direction. It is a joy […] It is also a work of quiet reckoning. Grounded in the specifics of Giovannoni’s own forebears, The Immigrants branches steadily outward until it is telling something far larger than one family’s story – something universal and necessary.”

The nonfiction judges – author and reviewer Michael McGirr and the Age’s Canberra bureau chief, Michelle Griffin – said of Wild’s book: “The Red House … gives us no sermons, only a compulsively readable story.”

The Red House is Wild’s account of the fatal shooting of Warlpiri-Luritja man Kumanjayi Walker by a white police officer in 2019. Said the Age: “Accepting her award, Walkley Award winner Wild offered thanks and respect to Warlpiri elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, a leading voice for justice in the shooting, and acknowledged Kumanjayi’s maternal grandparents, Joseph and Annie Lane.”

Last year’s winners were Rodney Hall for his novel Vortex (Picador), and Lech Blaine for the nonfiction work Australian Gospel: A Family Saga (Black Inc.).

More information about the 2026 winners is available on the Age website.

Category: Awards Local news