Bram Presser Bram Presser i(A144718 works by)
Born: Established: 1976 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Male
Heritage: Jewish
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BiographyHistory

Melbourne-based musician and writer, and an active member of Melbourne's Jewish community. Presser is best known for his multi-award-winning debut novel, The Book of Dirt.

Bram Presser has worked in Melbourne as a lawyer and still occasionally practises criminal law (as at 2018): he was a Bachelor of Laws Prize recipient in 2000 (Butterworths Prize: Advanced Legal Research). After graduating with honours in 2004, he became senior lecturer in Critical Criminal Law at Melbourne University. He was admitted to practice in 2010.

The frontman of Australian Jewish punk rock bank Yidcore, he performed with them from 1998 to their final show in 2009, including several tours of Israel. Yidcore originally specialised in punk covers of Jewish and Israeli songs, although they later wrote their own material, and released albums including The Great Chicken Soup Caper and They Tried to Kill Us. They Failed. Let's Eat! Presser has also performed at the Melbourne Jewish Comedy Festival, and performed as the voice of Mick Molloy's character in the film Boytown.

Presser began writing after Yidcore ended in 2009, and has published a number of short stories, as well as a monthly column in the Australian Jewish News. His first novel, The Book of Dirt, was released in 2017, and won three categories at the 2018 NSW Premier's Literary Award (Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, and the People's Choice Award). The novel draws on the experiences of his grandfather, Jan Randa, and his great grandmother, Frantiska Roubickova, during the Holocaust.


Australian Writing and Rock Music affiliation: songwriter, vocals.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Book of Dirt Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2017 11521001 2017 single work novel historical fiction

'They chose not to speak and now they are gone. What's left to fill the silence is no longer theirs. This is my story, woven from the threads of rumour and legend.'

'Jakub Rand flees his village for Prague, only to find himself trapped by the Nazi occupation. Deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he is forced to sort through Jewish books for a so-called Museum of the Extinct Race. Hidden among the rare texts is a tattered prayer book, hollow inside, containing a small pile of dirt.

'Back in the city, Františka Roubíčková picks over the embers of her failed marriage, despairing of her conversion to Judaism. When the Nazis summon her two eldest daughters for transport, she must sacrifice everything to save the girls from certain death.

'Decades later, Bram Presser embarks on a quest to find the truth behind the stories his family built around these remarkable survivors.

'The Book of Dirt is a completely original novel about love, family secrets, and Jewish myths. And it is a heart-warming story about a grandson's devotion to the power of storytelling and his family's legacy.'

2018 winner National Jewish Book Awards Debut Fiction Award
2018 winner Voss Literary Prize
2018 longlisted Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature
2018 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards People's Choice Award
2018 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
2018 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
Crumbs 2012 single work short story
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 7 January 2012; (p. 24-25) The Best Australian Stories 2012 2012; (p. 59-64) Award Winning Australian Writing 2012 2012; (p. 155-160)
2012 winner The Age Short Story Competition
Last amended 30 May 2023 15:55:26
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