Nita Kibble Literary Award (1994-)
Subcategory of Kibble Literary Awards Kibble Literary Awards Nita Kibble Literary Award
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History

The Nita Kibble Literary Award recognises the work of an established Australian woman writer, while the Nita May Dobbie Literary Award recognises a first published work from an Australian woman writer.

The award was annual from inception until 2016, when they became biennial.

The award was paused indefinitely after the 2018 presentation, due to a review of the funding trust and the award processes.

Source: http://www.perpetual.com.au/kibble/awards.htm Sighted: 15/11/2013.

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2018

winner y separately published work icon The High Places Fiona McFarlane , London : Hodder and Stoughton , 2016 9172969 2016 selected work short story

'The stories in this enthralling collection find those moments - and places - when life seems to do an about-face. The revelations of intimidating old friends on holiday, an accident on a dark country road, a lottery win and a lesson in the real nature of luck, the sudden arrival of American parachutists in a country town . . . here people are jolted into seeing themselves and their lives from a fresh and often disconcerting perspective.

'Ranging around the world from a remote Pacific island to the tourist haunts of Greece and written with great emotional insight, extraordinary invention and wry humour, each of these stories is as rich and rewarding as literature can be.' (Publication summary)

Year: 2016

winner y separately published work icon Small Acts of Disappearance : Essays on Hunger Fiona Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2015 8867320 2015 selected work essay (taught in 1 units)

Small Acts of Disappearance is a collection of ten essays that describes the author's affliction with an eating disorder which begins in high school, and escalates into life-threatening anorexia over the next ten years. Fiona Wright is a highly regarded poet and critic, and her account of her illness is informed by a keen sense of its contradictions and deceptions, and by an awareness of the empowering effects of hunger, which is unsparing in its consideration of the author's own actions and motivations. The essays offer perspectives on the eating disorder at different stages in Wright's life, at university, where she finds herself in a radically different social world to the one she grew up in, in Sri Lanka as a fledgling journalist, in Germany as a young writer, in her hospital treatments back in Sydney. They combine research, travel writing, memoir, and literary discussions of how writers like Christina Stead, Carmel Bird, Tim Winton, John Berryman and Louise Glück deal with anorexia and addiction; together with accounts of family life, and detailed and humorous views of hunger-induced situations of the kind that are so compelling in Wrights poetry. [Trove]

Year: 2015

winner y separately published work icon The Golden Age Joan London , North Sydney : Random House Australia , 2014 7617651 2014 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

'This is a story of resilience, the irrepressible, enduring nature of love, and the fragility of life. From one of Australia's most loved novelists.

'He felt like a pirate landing on an island of little maimed animals. A great wave had swept them up and dumped them here. All of them, like him, stranded, wanting to go home.

'It is 1954 and thirteen-year-old Frank Gold, refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio in Australia. At The Golden Age Children's Polio Convalescent Hospital in Perth, he sees Elsa, a fellow-patient, and they form a forbidden, passionate bond.

'The Golden Age becomes the little world that reflects the larger one, where everything occurs, love and desire, music, death, and poetry. Where children must learn that they are alone, even within their families.

'Written in Joan London's customary clear-eyed prose, The Golden Age evokes a time past and a yearning for deep connection. It is a rare and precious gem of a book from one of Australia's finest novelists. ' (Publication summary)

Year: 2014

winner y separately published work icon Boy, Lost : A Family Memoir Kristina Olsson , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2013 Z1923431 2013 single work biography (taught in 2 units)

'Kristina Olsson's mother lost her infant son, Peter, when he was snatched from her arms as she boarded a train in the hot summer of 1950. She was young and frightened, trying to escape a brutal marriage, but despite the violence and cruelty she'd endured, she was not prepared for this final blow, this breathtaking punishment. Yvonne would not see her son again for nearly 40 years.

'Kristina was the first child of her mother's subsequent, much gentler marriage and, like her siblings, grew up unaware of the reasons behind her mother's sorrow, though Peter's absence resounded through the family, marking each one. Yvonne dreamt of her son by day and by night, while Peter grew up a thousand miles and a lifetime away, dreaming of his missing mother.

'Boy, Lost tells how their lives proceeded from that shattering moment, the grief and shame that stalked them, what they lost and what they salvaged. But it is also the story of a family, the cascade of grief and guilt through generations, and the endurance of memory and faith.' (Publisher's blurb)

Year: 2013

winner y separately published work icon The Beloved Annah Faulkner , 2011 Sydney : Picador , 2012 Z1801046 2011 single work novel

'"It came one morning with the milk, and it seemed - at first - almost as innocent..."

'When Roberta "Bertie" Lightfoot is struck down with polio, her world collapses. But Mama doesn't tolerate self-pity, and Bertie is nobody if not her mother's daughter - until she sets her heart on becoming an artist. Through drawing, the gifted and perceptive Bertie gives form and voice to the reality of the people and the world around her. While her father is happy enough to indulge Bertie's driving passion, her mother will not let art get in the way of the future she wishes for her only daughter.

'In 1955 the family moves to post-colonial Port Moresby, a sometimes violent frontier town, where Bertie, determined to be the master of her own life canvas, rebels against her mother's strict control. In this tropical landscape, Bertie thrives amid the lush pallette of colours and abundance, secretly learning the techniques of drawing and painting under the tutelage of her mother's arch rival.

'But Roberta is not the only one deceiving her family. As secrets come to light, the domestic varnish starts to crack, and jealousy and passion threaten to forever mar the relationship between mother and daughter.

'Tender and witty, The Beloved is a moving debut novel which paints a vivid portrait of both the beauty and the burden of unconditional love.' (From the publisher's website.)

Works About this Award

Three Generations of Sydney Women Finalists for the 2016 Kibble Literary Award Susan Wyndam , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: Brisbane Times , 7 June 2016;
'Three generations of Sydney women are represented on the shortlist for the $30,000 Kibble Literary Award for women's life writing. ...'
It's Third Novel Lucky as Judges Call London Stephen Romei , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian , 16 July 2015; (p. 5)
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