We are so excited to discover three JdM titles on the shortlist for the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards!
The Awards received 533 entries this year, across all six categories – fiction, non-fiction, young adult literature, children’s literature, poetry, and Australian history – with each category narrowed down to a shortlist of five by expert judging panels.
‣ Shortlist category: Non-fiction ‣ Eventually Everything Connects: Eight Essays on Uncertainty (Allen & Unwin) by Sarah Firth.
Judge’s comments: ‘Sarah Firth offers a wildly inventive opus in Eventually Everything Connects. This memoir-cross-graphic-novel-cross-encyclopedia-of-modern-life is thrilling in its execution. Firth’s visual essays range from discussion of sexuality and desire to Olympic weightlifting to death and decomposition.
Firth skilfully demonstrates the possibilities offered by the graphic non-fiction form. Her illustration style is modern and entirely her own, characterised by clever recurring motifs and hidden details that reward close reading. The book’s art complements Firth’s literary voice, which balances sincerity with silliness.
Firth’s writing is candid and self-aware, employing the memoir form to ask questions that extend beyond herself. It is an empathetic work that is critical of power and conscious of systems but discusses this subject matter accessibly and invitingly. Firth achieves this balance by asking questions without proclaiming answers; instead, the reader is invited to join Firth herself as she searches.
The result is a literary quest, which brings together art, science, memoir, and deft deployment of intertextuality to generate and maintain its momentum. Firth has real verve that comes across on every page and leaves the reader in the state created by all great literature: of having seen and been seen.’
‣ Shortlist category: Young adult literature ‣ Grace Notes (Hachette Australia) by Karen Comer.
Judge’s comments; ‘Karen Comer’s assured debut is a verse novel that captures the fear, anxiety and boredom of the Melbourne Covid lockdowns with pinpoint accuracy. Comer employs verse skilfully and with easy engagement to enliven the teen voices of musician Grace and emerging street artist Crux. Through their eyes, and subtly beautiful imagery, Comer examines an extraordinary period of history.
Grace and Crux are authentically drawn, and their storylines are tenderly written, capturing the missteps and elation of young love amid family ups and downs, and the larger concerns surrounding the threat of Covid and the world’s handling (or mishandling) of the crisis. The depth of Comer’s understanding of these times is drawn from personal experience and combines powerfully with well-researched themes of music and art—the things that kept many of us going during the pandemic.
There is a temptation to read Grace Notes as though it is entirely a work of fiction, such is the ease with which she writes, the truth is never far away through, drawn back to our attention with an apt observation or turn or phrase: that Covid is something that happened to all of us, and that these are our stories.’
‣ Shortlist category: Children’s Literature ‣ Millie Mak the Maker (HarperCollins AU) by Alice Pung, illustrated by Sher Rill Ng.
Judge’s comments; ‘Millie Mak is indeed a girl for our times. A relatable character, she’s introduced through two connected stories in Millie Mak the Maker.
This layered approach, including instructions for making the crafty projects that Millie completes with her family and friends, and charming illustrations throughout, ensure a delightful payoff for our younger readers as they make their way through a longer read.
Authentic and refreshingly honest, exploring culture and class, the stories move at a lively pace and reflect the experience of a young Australian girl of Chinese and Scottish heritage, as she comes to understand her family and her friends, where she fits, and what’s important. Millie learns that things are not always as simple as they seem.
The language used offers appropriate complexity, and the themes of resourcefulness, resilience, kindness, and patience, both at home and within the school environment, would resonate strongly with many Australian children today.
It would be remiss to not also draw attention to the book’s design and production. Produced in a textured hardcover embossed with gold highlights, and featuring patterned endpapers, Millie Mak is a very special bibliographic package both inside and out.’
Congratulations to everyone shortlisted, and our creators especially!
These authors will share in a tax-free prize pool of $600,000 – the highest literary prize in the nation.
Winners will be announced on Thursday 12 September at the National Library in Canberra.
