Media Release
Themes of Identity, History and Community Emerge in 2004 Premier's Awards
18 October 2004
The Deputy Premier John Thwaites tonight announced the ten winners of the prestigious Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2004 at Zinc, Federation Square.
This year’s Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction has been won by writer Annamarie Jagose for her novel Slow Water.
Slow Water is an historically-based work of fiction, drawing on the story of English clergyman William Yates’ 1830s voyage from London to the Antipodes and culminating in an infamous gay scandal which rocked colonial Sydney. It is a love story told with touching humanity and sympathetic humour.
‘The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are a practical demonstration of the State Government’s commitment to the promotion of writing – and to the writer’s role as the conscience of society,’ Mr Thwaites said, ‘and this year’s winners all make strong and unique contributions to our understanding of society, of the context which has shaped us and the choices which will shape our future.’
Graeme Davison has won the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction for Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities.
Car Wars is a history from the driver’s seat, showing how the car has shaped not only the topography of a city but also the social and working lives, the culture, of its inhabitants, in ways that are simultaneously liberating and constraining.
The winners across the ten categories include last year’s Non-fiction winner, Barry Hill, who wins the Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate with his essay The Mood We Are In: Circa Australia Day 2004.
The 2004 awards include two new categories, the biennial Prize for Indigenous Writing and the Prize for a First Book of History.
‘These two new categories encompass our sense of community and expand our understanding of our historical and social context,’ said Mr Thwaites.
Rebe Taylor’s Unearthed: The Aboriginal Tasmanians of Kangaroo Island won the Prize for a First Book of History. The Prize for Indigenious Writing was won by Vivienne Cleven’s Her Sister’s Eye.
Director/writer Cate Shortland won the Village Roadshow Prize for Screenwriting for her powerful screen-play Somersault about a young girl’s journey of trying to belong, set in the alpine region of Australia.
Budding author Angela Savage won the Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer with her work Thai Died. Her novel is an engrossing crime thriller and explores the adventures of 30-something Jayne, an Australian expatriate working as a private detective in Bangkok.
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are in their twentieth year and during the last two decades have expanded from five to ten prizes with total prize money of $180,000.
The Awards were initiated by Premier John Cain in 1985 and are a key element in the promotion of Australia’s creative writers and publishing industry.
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2004 are administered by the State Library of Victoria.
The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
Winner:
Slow Water
by Annamarie Jagose
Vintage/Random House
Shortlist:
Elizabeth Costello
by J.M. Coetzee
Knopf/Random House
A Private Man
by Malcolm Knox
Vintage/Random House
The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction
Winner:
Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities
by Graeme Davison
Allen & Unwin
Shortlist:
Dancing with Strangers
by Inga Clendinnen
Text Publishing
The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty
by Mark Peel
Cambridge University Press
The C J Dennis Prize for Poetry
Winner:
Wolf Notes
by Judith Beveridge
Giramondo
Shortlist:
The Imageless World
by Michael Brennan
Salt Publishing
The Sleep of a Learning Man
by Anthony Lawrence
Giramondo
The Louis Esson Prize for Drama
Winner:
Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America: A Drama in 30 Scenes
by Stephen Sewell
Playbox/Currency
Shortlist:
Falling Petals
by Ben Ellis
Playbox/Currency
Wonderlands
by Katherine Thomson
Currency
The Prize for Young Adult Fiction
Winner:
Black Juice
by Margo Lanagan
Allen & Unwin
Shortlist:
Nights in the Sun
by Colin Bowles
Penguin Books Australia
Boys of Blood & Bone
by David Metzenthen
Penguin Books Australia
The Prize for Indigenous Writing
Winner:
Her Sister’s Eye
by Vivienne Cleven
University of Queensland Press
Shortlist:
Home
by Larissa Behrendt
University of Queensland Press
Dorothy’s Skin
by Dennis McDermott
Five Islands Press
The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate
Winner:
The Mood We Are In: Circa Australia Day 2004
by Barry Hill
Overland Magazine
Shortlist:
Fantasy Island
by James Boyce
from Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History
Black Inc
Made in England: Australia’s British Inheritance
by David Malouf
Black Inc
The Village Roadshow Prize for Screen Writing
Winner:
Somersault
by Cate Shortland
Red Carpet Productions
Shortlist:
Tom White
by Daniel Keene
Rescued Films/Fandango Productions
Martha’s New Coat
by Elizabeth Mars
Newtown Films
The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer
Winner:
Thai Died
by Angela Savage
Shortlist:
You’ve Changed
by Shalini Akhil
Deadly Force
by Jarad W. Henry
The Prize for a First Book of History
Winner:
Unearthed: The Aboriginal Tasmanians of Kangaroo Island
by Rebe Taylor
Wakefield Press
Shortlist:
Einstein’s Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics
by Robyn Arianrhod
University of Queensland Press
The Power of Speech: Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image
by James Curran
Melbourne University Publishing
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