The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Winners / Recipients
-
Year: 1991
winner y
Revolution by Night, or, Katjala Wananu (The Son after the Father): A Story of the Central Deserts Together with the Monograph Written by Jack Terrence Dutruc and Entitled "Interior" an Analysis of Hieroglyphs in Australian Art, and Its Perspectives
Sydney
:
Local Consumption Publications
,
1991
Z462303
1991
single work
novel
-
Year: 1990
winner y
Cardboard : The Strength Thereof and Other Related Matters
Sydney
:
Local Consumption Publications
,
1989
Z42640
1989
single work
novel
'A fictionalized account of one woman's life-threatening eating disorder and her eventual hard-won recovery. Author Fiona Place has created Lucy, a narrator who is capable of taking the reader inside the dark and puzzling experience of anorexia nervosa. A university student, Lucy falls ill while on a coach trip in Europe. Ashen, thin and with a thready heartbeat, she cannot understand what is wrong with her. The tour leader decides she is homesick. And lying on her bed, she is left to fend for herself. Alone in her tiny hotel room Lucy wonders what she should do? Is she really sick or just homesick? Reluctantly, she decides to fly to an English speaking country. And to her embarrassment is taken off the plane in a wheelchair. Lucy is now a patient. And unknowingly enters into a dynamic and powerful struggle over the ownership of her life's narrative. Hospitalized she undergoes a range of treatments - some harsh, some ineffective, others insightful and intelligent. Cleverly observed, Lucy invites the reader to make sense of what it means to be ill. To understand why eating has become impossible. And as she fleshes out her journey towards recovery, demands her distress be understood. Demands it be put into her own words. When it was first published Cardboard was recognized as a compelling portrait and one of the first books to understand the importance of the role of narrative in the recovery process. Similarly today when much of the focus on eating disorders concerns decoding the genetics and biology of the condition, this prize-winning novel continues to provide an understanding of the individual's affective experience and the socio-cultural context in which it occurs.' (Source: bookseller's website)
-
Year: 1989
winner y
Out of the Line of Fire
Ringwood
:
Penguin
,
1988
Z370746
1988
single work
novel
'To an Australian writer visiting Heidelberg, the brilliant young philosophy student Wolfi is a compelling character. From the start, the details of Wolfi's life are curious - from his inquisitorial father and passionate mother to the grandmother who pays for his sexual initiation with a prostitute and to his connections with the outlandish rogue Karl.
'As we are lured by Wolfi's obsession into the mysterious and erotic maze of this novel, we find nothing is as it appears.
'What in fact is fact and what in fiction is fiction?' (Publication summary)
-
Year: 1988
winner y
Black Cat, Green Field
Moorebank
:
Black Swan
,
1988
Z379265
1988
single work
novel
Works About this Award
-
Henshaw Wins Literary Award 1994 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 10 February 1994; (p. 4) -
Banjo Accolade Helps Henshaw Face Music 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 24 September 1989; (p. 18)
