The Prize for Young Adult Fiction: Winner 2004

Judges report

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)

In Black Juice, Margo Lanagan has produced a book of short stories that, like her earlier collection White Time, blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. She writes of times and places that are strange yet elusively familiar, of alien landscapes that throw out universal echoes of need, despair and joy. These compelling stories explore the ways in which we form relationships and construct our identities both as individuals and as groups - each tale reflecting long-established patterns through mirrors that distort their original context.

Black Juice is strong and beautifully written; the stories wrap us slowly in their meaning, forcing us to engage firstly on a sensual and emotional level, taking it on trust that understanding will follow. The language is at once sophisticated and accessible – not a word is wasted in building a rich imagery that is all the more compelling, created as it is with such measured economy. It is language that resonates and breathes, language that demands input from the reader but that seduces first so that the effort is unnoticeable. The nature of Black Juice is such that the readership cannot be confined to any one group. However, in all these stories, Lanagan speaks particularly to young adults about a world they will inherit – about the paths they may choose to follow, influences they can decide to embrace or ignore and about the intense, reassuring but variable nature of love. Each short story is tightly contained but remains fluid enough to find room for all the world with its frailty, prejudices and possibilities - room also for the young adult reader to move around and look for meaning on their own terms. Lanagan doesn’t offer up answers but forces a shift in perspective that opens the way for questions.