The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate: Shortlist 2004

Judges:

Jonathan Mills (Convenor), Louise Adler, Barry Jones

The Alfred Deakin Prize for an essay advancing public debate was first offered in 2001. It would seem that this is an appropriate time to make a few broad observations about the nature of the nominations received and the genre of essay writing in Australia today.

Sadly there are too few opportunities for essayists to practice their craft. Neither feature articles in the mainstream press, nor pieces that more resemble chapters in books, exactly fit the form.

Writing an essay is not easy. It requires a rare combination of skills and intuition: the prose elegance of a great short story, combined with the sharply honed instincts of a great journalist. It must be pithy, succinct and provocative.

The Alfred Deakin Prize has another crucial dimension to it. It is intended to support and recognise those essays which "advance public debate". It is a prize with an implied emphasis on the polemical, quasi pamphleteering aspects of the essay.

The themes in this year's essays were largely to do with the nation's history: history wars, the injustices done to indigenous Australians, asylum seekers, the disempowered and the disenfranchised.

The short listed essays, each deal with the balance between the private and public domain, so essential in good essays, in very different ways.

Shortlist

Fantasy Island
by James Boyce

from Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History
Black Inc
James Boyce's essay is perhaps the most overtly public of the three; it is a passionate and compellingly written argument at the heart of current political discourse.

The Mood We Are In: Circa Australia Day 2004
by Barry Hill
Overland Magazine
Reading Barry Hill's essay, one is impressed by the writer's struggle to come to terms with some deep conflicts between private feelings and public obligations. It is an extremely ambitious undertaking; a genuine attempt to simultaneously sniff the air and sift the facts in a unique combination of intuition and realism.

Made in England: Australia’s British Inheritance
by David Malouf
Black Inc
David Malouf's essay is a masterly piece of writing from one of our great artists. His subject, whilst not fashionable at the moment, is treated with Independence and profound insight. The essay invites us into a world of clarity, sophistication and empathy. It is a highly considered, personal response to an issue that has been often misrepresented in recent public debate.