The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer: Winner 2003

Judges report

The Cultivator by Carrie Tiffany

Set in the Mallee wheat belt of the 1930s, this novel captures, in beautifully assured detail, the hope and disappointment of an era. The ecological catastrophe that follows on the heels of an initial optimism about the future of scientific agricultural techniques is viewed through the eyes of a young wife, whose husband's grandiose vision gradually destroys a community. Against a setting of rural hardship and imminent war, The Cultivator explores the theme of determined human imposition on the landscape, something which was fated to end in disaster. In the hands of an accomplished storyteller who has created memorable characters, this idea finds strong resonance with contemporary Australia.