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2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Judges’ Reports for Winners

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)

Carrie Tiffany Mateship with Birds Pan Macmillan Australia Mateship with Birds is an account of the shy, cautious courtship between Harry, a lonely dairy farmer, and Betty, a bruised single mother with two children. Harry and Betty live in a country town where human beings and animals share the same space; Harry knows a great deal more about the sex lives of his dairy cows than he knows about women. The down-to-earth picture of rural life — realistic in its wealth of detail and without sentimentality — is infused with subdued humour and rendered in plain but graceful prose which occasionally ascends to poetry. Mateship with Birds is a beautifully crafted book and a joy to read. In this wonderfully lyrical book, Tiffany evokes the breadth of a rural landscape through her moving story of two wary people who each lack the confidence to believe they could be loved by the other. The simplicity of Tiffany’s language and the gentleness of her narrative give to the story a poetical brilliance that is at once energetic and serene. With an eye for detail and a willingness to confront topics more easily left untouched, Tiffany has created in Mateship with Birds a memorable work of gentle beauty, wry humour and delicate but earthy imagery.

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5000)

Michael Sala The Last Thread Affirm Press The Last Thread follows the growth of a boy to manhood, as he is overshadowed by a handsomer, more confident elder brother, and dogged by memories of an unstable home environment (a divorce, an absent father, a mother torn in her loyalties between her children and the new man in her life). He shuttles back and forth between the Netherlands and Australia, trying to make sense of the hand that fate has dealt him. Through the eyes of the young Michaelis, we see the world in keen, arresting images; his mother’s struggles to give meaning to her life in a new country are rendered with quiet sympathy. This is a sensitive and accomplished first novel with a strong autobiographical colouring. It is a testament to Sala’s skill as a writer that the undercurrent of menace that lurks within this story is never allowed to overwhelm the work. Through careful use of understatement and inference, Sala gives voice to events and fears the child narrator, Michaelis, is hesitant to detail, and in doing so, creates a powerful work of deceptive simplicity. The Last Thread is a moving examination of the fragmentation of memory and the legacy of a childhood marked by instability and dislocation.

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Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40,000)

Gideon Haigh

The Office: A Hardworking History

Melbourne University Publishing

Elegant, witty and informative, this is the history of a place we have all experienced; indeed a place where many of us spend much our waking lives. Defamiliarising the ordinary is usually the role of the poet but in this case the job is in the capable hands of a long-form journalist in his prime. Haigh transforms detailed research on a seemingly humdrum topic into a truly pleasurable and entertaining reading experience.

This book is about the contemporary office and the historical office, including the office of Egyptian scribes, labelled by Haigh as ‘the original stylus-pushers’. It is also the office found in the fiction of Dickens, Dostevesky, Kafka and Melville and office of the movies and Mad Men. Through learning about the office, we learn about ourselves and what we have always thought of as mundane - the individual work cubicle - metamorphoses into something profound.

In its scope, its ambition, its willingness to address an largely invisible yet important subject from an international perspective, The Office is a significant work written by a journailst with a careful attention to detail and a stylist's touch. Haigh introduces to a world in which most of us live, enlarging our sense of the ordinary and everyday.

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000) and Book of the Year ($10,000)

Ali Cobby Eckermann Ruby Moonlight Magabala Books Ruby Moonlight is a verse sequence imagining a specific incident in mid-north South Australia, in the late nineteenth century. Through a series of interconnected poems we follow the story of a young girl, Ruby, who survives the massacre of her entire family; wandering through Ngadjuri land, ‘she staggers to follow bird song’ and trusts in nature to guide her to safety. Through a minimal style, absence of punctuation and deeply emotional yet understated and refined storytelling, Ruby Moonlight recounts an unforgettable series of experiences and illuminates parts of the Australian natural world that are often forgotten, ignored or altered. It is the kind of powerful narrative that has often been silenced. Cobby-Eckermann writes the history of Ruby but also of Indigenous people who were victims of massacres around Australia during colonisation. The writing evokes violence and loneliness, isolation and death, but within this darkness is a healing brightness that resides both in the descriptive power of the language and in Ruby's journey. The writing is not didactic or angry but generates discussion; it offers the reader a chance to understand more about this country’s past and its impact on our present. In Ruby Moonlight, Ali Cobby-Eckermann has written a series of interconnected poems, a verse novel really, that describes first contact from an Indigenous point of view. It is personal, historic and profoundly human. These innovative poems take up traditional narrative voices, bringing past conflicts vividly to life with short and agile lines that are lucid, refined and luminous. Colonialism and survival are set against the natural world, love and

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the desire for human engagement. The writing is delicate yet strong, the tone is pitched so well the reader is not distracted by the agile technique that carries the narrative forward. Ali Cobby Eckerman has created a new language that holds the reader's attention from beginning to end, this reflective narrative is an outstanding achievement that will, with its skill and elegance, deeply enrich Australian poetry and whoever reads it.

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)

Aaron Blabey The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon Penguin Group (Australia) The village of Twee, seven miles from the sea, had a problem more awful than most. That problem is the shabby and crabby Miss Annabel Spoon. The integration of a number of different elements makes this picture book near perfect. At its simplest it is a story about a lonely woman who makes a friend. On another level, this is a tale about why communities should not exclude or fear those who appear different in looks or behaviour: harmony is restored when there is understanding and a little compassion. Then there is the way the story is told, in wonderfully clever and often hilarious six-line rhyming stanzas. The haunting illustrations complement the text — at first they are sombre and somewhat grotesque, then develop a lonely sadness, and conclude with the colourful happiness of friendship. The text demands to be read aloud or acted out, and its language and rhymes savoured. There is wonderful balance and humour in the depictions of the frightened townsfolk, and marvellous suspense as the hero, young Herbert Kettle, walks through the woods to confront Miss Spoon. While this book can be shared with young children, it will be most appreciated by those in the middle and upper primary years. A wonderful meld of image and text, The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon is an apparently “dark” story that is at the same time scary and funny. The unusual colour scheme suits the gothic nature of the illustrations and plot while the rhythm and consistent rhyming pattern of the text pull the story along at a pace. The introduction of Herbert Kettle, his common sense and courage change the tenor of the tale and introduce a more colourful palette to the pages.

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature ($30,000)

Jaclyn Moriarty A Corner of White Pan Macmillan Australia In dual narratives (punctuated by alternative texts such as witty travel guides and outrageously funny newspaper columns written by travelling Sister Princesses), Moriarty tracks the lives of teenagers Madeleine, living in Cambridge, England, and Elliott, denizen of the town of Bonfire, in the province of The Farms, in the Kingdom of Cello. Madeleine and Elliott have much in common: both are experiencing the loss of a father and the first stirrings of romantic love. But where Madeleine’s troubles are typically those of a girl in our world, Elliott’s are complicated by living in a world where sentient Colours sweep across the land: the Reds that evince feelings of romantic love, the Lemon Yellows, which strike dart-like — first at the eyes, and then the heart. Madeleine and Elliott connect through that corner of

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white — the ‘slim seam’ of the envelopes containing letters they post to one another through a crack between their respective worlds. Bringing together science, history, poetry, a dash of philosophy, a sprinkling of the mystical and a whole heaping of imagination, A Corner of White is that rare thing — an astonishingly original novel, that speaks equally to the heart and the intelligence of its audience. Long known for her epistolary novels of teenage life, love and intrigue, Moriarty’s A Corner of White sees her tread new ground — that of parallel-world fantasy — while maintaining her trademark humour and eccentricity of plot, language and character. Moriarty displays masterful control over her various narrative threads, and the book rewards multiple readings. A Corner of White sees one of Australia's best writers for young adults at the peak of her not inconsiderable craft.

Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)

Reg Cribb The Damned Black Swan State Theatre Company The Damned is a hard-hitting social drama based on an apparently motiveless murder that took place in Collie, Western Australia, in 2006. Two schoolfriends, Natasha and Kylie, living in the small country town of Rainbow, are caught in a vortex of awakening sexuality, drugs and ennui. They murder another schoolgirl, Sarah-Jane, and hide her body under the house before confessing to the police. Told with harsh vigour and using brutally poetic dialogue, The Damned surprises with the freshness it brings to a not unfamiliar story. It is fascinating because of the strangely unresolved nature of the drama. Why did they do it? The girls themselves seem oddly indifferent to either Sarah-Jane's fate, or their own. Instead of catharsis, we are offered a glimpse of lost youth. The Damned is a searing encounter with the void at the heart of Australia. Bold language rooted in the Australian idiom, and a firm grasp of storytelling, make The Damned an outstanding play in a stunning field of contenders. An ambitious, epic drama set amidst the ordinary and apparently mundane, The Damned reaches far beyond itself to say something profound and deeply disturbing about the lonely passions that continue to animate this restless land.

Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000) Louise Fox Dead Europe See-saw Films Labelled as ‘un-adaptable’ when first published, Louise Fox has done a masterful job distilling the essence of Christos Tsiolkas’ long and complex third novel, Dead Europe, into a trancelike and disturbing mystery while still remaining faithful to the original source material. By condensing two separate narratives —two time frames becoming a single period and excising the explicit supernatural elements contained in the book — Fox has created a haunting tale of an unsuspecting, Greek Australian man on a collision course with the past. While the reader of the book is told upfront about the family’s wartime secret, Fox hides this

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revelation from the protagonist and the viewer. In a shadowy underworld of drug addicts, pimps, people smugglers and prostitutes in modern-day Europe, she infuses her screenplay with a creeping dread that is deeply unsettling. When the full horror of the past is revealed, it delivers a sickening punch. More than a mystery, Dead Europe has an ambition and boldness of reach that is groundbreaking for Australian cinematic writing. By paralleling the horrific plight of Jews during World War II with the exploitation of Europe’s refugees today, the screenplay takes a timely look at how the echoes of the continent’s brutal past still shape its troubled present. It leaves a searing, uncomfortable and indelible portrait of a soulless and decaying continent. As an indelible portrait of a deeply troubled history, Dead Europe stands apart. A film adaptation is not just the book in pictures, it is the creation of a totally new work, relying on visuals and action as opposed to figurative language and inner thoughts, that has to stand on its own in a new medium. Louise Fox has created a compelling and psychologically thrilling screenplay from Tsiolkas’ novel that is still faithful to the ‘spirit’ of the book, yet commanding in its own right. This is testament to her unique vision and to a deep understanding of form. This is a script that reveals a profound connection to the unsettling horror and wonder of what it is to be human.

Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)

Tim Soutphommasane Don’t Go Back to Where You Came From New South Publishing Tim Soutphommasane’s Don’t Go Back to Where You Came From is a timely and vital intervention in the discussion around multiculturalism in Australia. It makes no apology for its agenda; it is, as the introduction announces, ‘a defence of multiculturalism grounded in liberal political philosophy’. An Asian Australian academic who has become an erudite social and political commentator, Soutphommasane is amply qualified for the task. His voice is lively but composed and lucid as he gives a comprehensive tour through his subject and mounts a compelling case for cultural diversity. He doesn’t gloss over difficult issues like migrants’ civil responsibilities, their right to retain their culture, or the conflict between liberalism and patriotism, but navigates them with panache and wisdom.

In positioning Australian multiculturalism in the regional and global contexts, Soutphommasane not only showcases Australia as ‘an international exemplar’ but also reveals how transnational flows of people and ideas are rapidly changing what multiculturalism means. Don’t Go Back to Where You Came From is an honest, balanced enquiry, an engaged and enlightened survey of multiculturalism in practice.

In a time when multiculturalism is being put on trial in Europe, Soutphommasane creates a compelling case in its defence, a cogent argument for civic involvement in its continuing narrative. It is a book that will make those who embrace cultural plurality passively think deeply about the complexities and challenges of inter-ethnic and cross-cultural exchange, and persuade the sceptics and critics to take a second look. It is a must-read for all and merits a place in the school curriculum.

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NSW Premier’s Translation Prize ($30,000)

Peter Boyle A work of translation carries more than the literal words and meanings of the original work and culture — the best translations provide ‘the grace note that can raise a book to an even higher level’ (as the poet and translator George Szirtes says). Peter Boyle’s sensitive but rigorous translations of poetry over many years from French and Spanish have covered well- known classics by René Char, Federico Garcia Lorca and Cesár Vallejo as well as poets whose works are contemporary classics in their own languages but are less familiar in English. Boyle’s translation of the Venezuelan Eugenio Montejo is the first book-length selection of his work in English, while his translation of the expatriate Cuban José Kozer’s difficult but breathtaking poem cycle Anima is an adventurous choice — both enrich the English-reading audience’s access to these landmark poets. These translations have been internationally recognised and praised. Perhaps the translator’s art is more conspicuous in the case of poetry — there are fewer words to hide behind, fewer words to convey the nature and scope of the original. There is the poet’s overt play with language and structure. Peter Boyle’s translations are the works of a poet, never mere echoes of poems in another language, never merely ‘straitjacketed by the literal meaning’. Boyle is utterly at home in his own language, and his translations bring the poems home too, producing works of art in English while skilfully staying true to the spirit, preoccupations and beauty of the originals.

The choices a translator makes are important, if not crucial, in bringing us worldviews and experiences that are culturally specific, yet carry our common humanity across the language and culture divide. Against the culturally homogenizing trends of globalisation, a translator such as Boyle introduces a crack: out of which steps a world.

NSW Premier’s Special Award ($10,000)

David Ireland AM

David Ireland was born on a kitchen table in Lakemba in 1927. He left school at 16 and worked in a variety of jobs, from a greenkeeper to a shift-worker at Sydney's Kurnell Refinery, that iconic industrial site at Sydney's Botany Bay which became the setting for his second novel, The Unknown Industrial Prisoner, widely considered one of the great Australian fictions of the seventies.

The judges note that his writing – modernist, masculine, urban, working class – has had an influence far in excess of the author's name recognition. Traces of Ireland's inimitable manner may be sensed in the early metafictions of Peter Carey and the most recent novel by Malcolm Knox; in the grungier corners of Andrew McGahan and Christos Tsiolkas; and even in such unlikely places as George Miller’s Mad Max films and the lyrics and fiction of Nick Cave.

Ireland is one of only four Australian writers to win the Miles Franklin Award more than twice (the others being Thea Astley, Peter Carey, and Tim Winton). In 1985 he won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for Archimedes and the Seagull. In 1980 he won The Age Book of the Year Award for A Woman of the Future (jointly), which also won the Miles Franklin. The Glass Canoe and The Unknown Industrial Prisoner also won the Miles Franklin.

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For his significant contribution to Australian literature and in acknowledgement of his extraordinary talent, this year’s Special Award is made to David Ireland AM.

Novels The Chantic Bird (1968) The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (1971) The Flesheaters (1972) Burn (1974) The Glass Canoe (1976) A Woman of the Future (1979) City of Women (1981) Archimedes and the Seagle (1984) Bloodfather (1987) The Chosen (1997)

Drama Image in the Clay (1964)

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