Prime Minister’s Literary awards

The Prime Minister's Literary Award is Australia's richest literary prize.

2018 Prime Minister’s Literary awards – the shortlist

Fiction

Winner: Border Districts by Gerald Murnane
A Long Way from Home by Peter Carey
First Person by Richard Flanagan
Taboo by Kim Scott
The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser

Nonfiction

Winner: Asia’s Reckoning by Richard McGregor
Mischka’s War: A European Odyssey of the 1940s by Sheila Fitzpatrick
No Front Line: Australia’s Special Forces at War in Afghanistan by Chris Masters
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells
Unbreakable by Jelena Dokic and Jessica Halloran

Australian history

Winner: John Curtin’s War: The coming of war in the Pacific, and reinventing Australia, volume 1 by John Edwards
Beautiful Balts: From Displaced Persons to New Australians by Jayne Persian
Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney by Paul Irish
Indigenous and Other Australians Since 1901 by Tim Rowse
The Enigmatic Mr Deakin by Judith Brett

Poetry

Winner: Blindness and Rage: A Phantasmagoria by Brian Castro
Archipelago by Adam Aitken
Chatelaine by Bonny Cassidy
Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright
Transparencies by Stephen Edgar

Young Adult literature

Winner: This is My Song by Richard Yaxley
Living on Hope Street by Demet Divaroren
My Lovely Frankie by Judith Clarke
Ruben by Bruce Whatley
The Ones that Disappeared by Zana Fraillon

Children’s literature

Winner: Pea Pod Lullaby by Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King
Feathers by Phil Cummings and Phil Lesnie
Figgy Takes the City by Tamsin Janu
Hark, It’s Me, Ruby Lee! by Lisa Shanahan and Binny Talib
Storm Whale by Sarah Brennan and Jane Tanner

Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2020 winners announced
10 December 2020
The winners of the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards have been announced.

The winning titles in each category are:
Fiction
The Yield (Tara June Winch)

Nonfiction (joint winners)
Songspirals: Sharing women’s wisdom of Country through songlines (Gay’wu Group of Women)
Sea People: The puzzle of Polynesia (Christina Thompson)

Australian history
Meeting the Waylo: Aboriginal encounters in the Archipelago (Tiffany Shellam)

Poetry
The Lost Arabs (Omar Sakr)

Children’s literature
Cooee Mittigar: A story on Darug songlines (Jasmine Seymour)

Young adult literature
How it Feels to Float (Helena Fox).

2021 Winners and shortlists

Fiction
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey - Winner
A Treacherous Country by K.M. Kruimink
In the Time of Foxes by Jo Lennan
Lucky's by Andrew Pippos
The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

Poetry
The Strangest Place, New and Selected Poems by Stephen Edgar - Winner
Homer Street by Laurie Duggan
Change Machine by Jaya Savige
Shorter Lives by John A. Scott
Nothing to Declare by Mags Webster

Non-fiction
The Stranger Artist: Life at the Edge of Kimberley Painting by Quentin Sprague - Winner
Flight Lines: Across the Globe on a Journey with the Astonishing Ultramarathon Birds by Andrew Darby
The Details: On Love, Death and Reading by Tegan Bennett Daylight
Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse by Cassandra Pybus
The Altar Boys by Suzanne Smith

Australian history
People of the River: Lost Worlds of Early Australia by Grace Karskens - Winner
Pathfinders: A History of Aboriginal Trackers in NSW by Michael Bennett
The Convict Valley: The Bloody Struggle on Australia's Early Frontier by Mark Dunn
Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection by Jason M. Gibson
Representing Australian Aboriginal Music and Dance 1930–1970 by Amanda Harris

Young adult literature
Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore
The F Team by Rawah Arja
The End of the World is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell
When Rain Turns to Snow by Jane Godwin
Loner by Georgina Young

Children's literature
Fly on the Wall by Remy Lai - Winner
How to Make a Bird by Meg McKinlay and illustrated by Matt Ottley - Winner
The Year the Maps Changed by Danielle Binks
The January Stars by Kate Constable
The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst by Jaclyn Moriarty and illustrated by Kelly Canby.