ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

Update 11/11/20 The winner was Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe.

Update on the 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize: the shortlisted novels are in bold.  Alas, all three are the very ones I haven’t read.  (Though I do have Master of My Fate on order at Benn’s Books).

Longlisted entries include:

• Master of My Fate by Sienna Brown (Penguin Books Australia)
• Bodies of Men by Nigel Featherstone (Hachette Australia), see my review
• Shepherd by Catherine Jinks (Text Publishing), see Jennifer’s review at Tasmanian Bibliophile at Large
• Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe (University of Queensland Press), on my TBR, see Theresa Smith’s review
• The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith (Allen & Unwin Australia), see my review
• Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas (Allen & Unwin Australia), see Sue’s review at Whispering Gums
• The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (Affirm Press), see my review
• The Yield by Tara June Winch (Penguin Books Australia), see my review

The Historical Novel Society of Australia has more info at their website.

For further information about each of the authors and their novels, please visit 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize Longlist.

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The announcement of the longlist coincides with ARA Group doubling its funding for the inaugural award, increasing the total prize monies to $60,000. The overall prize winner will now receive $50,000, with an additional $5,000 to be awarded to each of the remaining two shortlisted authors.

The increase in funding places the ARA Historical Novel Prize among the top five richest literary prizes in Australia and New Zealand, and makes it the most significant genre-based literary prize in Australia.

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Sponsored by the ARA Group,

The ARA Historical Novel Prize is designed to give historical novelists the opportunity to be recognised in a class of their own — for the first time ever as part of an Australian and New Zealand literary award.