Prime Minister's Literary Awards
The Prime Minister's Literary Awards were established in 2008 to celebrate outstanding literary talent in Australia and these author's contribution to the nation's cultural and intellectual life.
A prize of $80,000 is awarded to the winner in each of the six categories, and $5000 is presented to each author who is shortlisted.
Shop the nominees in each category below.
John Curtin's War: The Coming of War in the Pacific and Reinventing Australia by John Edwards
$55.00 NZD
Category: Prize for Australian History
John Curtin became Australia's Prime Minister eight weeks before Japan launched war in the Pacific.Curtin's struggle for power against Joe Lyons and Bob Menzies, his dramatic use of it when he took office in October 1941, and his determination to be heard in Washington and London as Japan advanced, is a ...Show more
Living on Hope Street by Demet Divaroren
$22.99 NZD
Category: Young Adult Fiction
We all love someone. We all fear something. Sometimes they live right next door--or even closer. Kane will do everything he can to save his mother and his little brother Sam from the violence of his father, even if it means becoming a monster himself. Mrs. Aslan will protect the boys no matter what--ev ...Show more
Mischka's War: A European Odyssey of the 1940s by Sheila Fitzpatrick
$39.99 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction
On a winter's day in 1943, 22-year-old Mischka Danos chanced on a terrible sight as he skied through Latvian woods-a pit filled with the bodies of Jews killed by the occupying Germans. The world was full of such atrocities, which makes Mischka?s decision to escape conscription to the Waffen-SS by going ...Show more
My Brother (HB) by Dee Huxley
$30.00 NZD
Category: Children's Fiction
When a grieving brother sets out to find his lost sibling, his quest takes him on an ethereal journey across land and sea - to fantastic, floating cities, and mediaeval towns full of dark alleyways and winding staircases - to vast open grasslands and eerie, silent forests - until eventually he arrives i ...Show more
My Lovely Frankie by Judith Clarke
$22.99 NZD
Category: Young Adult Fiction
"Frankie believed in Heaven quite literally, as if it was another lovely world out past the stars. And when he spoke the word "love," it seemed to spring free and fly into the air like a beautiful balloon you wanted to run after. But I couldn't tell my parents about Frankie, not properly. I told them I' ...Show more
No Front Line: Australia's special forces at war in Afghanistan by Chris Masters
$39.99 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction
The soldiers of the SAS, the Commandos and Special Operations Engineer Regiment are Australia's most highly trained soldiers. Their work is often secret, their bravery undeniable and for thirteen years they were at the forefront of Australia's longest war. Shunning acclaim, they are the Australian Defen ...Show more
One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn
$24.00 NZD
Category: Young Adult Fiction
Sam stared at the picture of the boy about to be tipped off the edge of the world: the crushing weight of water about to pummel him. Sam knew that moment exactly, the disbelief that what was about to happen could even be possible. The intake of breath before the flood. Sam has always had things going on ...Show more
Our Man Elsewhere In Search of Alan Moorehead by Thornton McCamish
$48.00 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction
A world-famous Australian writer, an inspiration to Robert Hughes and Clive James, a legendary war correspondent who also wrote bestselling histories of exploration and conservation . . . and yet forgotten? In this dazzling book, Thornton McCamish delves into the past to reclaim a remarkable figure, Ala ...Show more
Pea Pod Lullaby by Glenda Millard; Stephen Michael King (Illustrator)
$18.99 NZD
Category: Children's Fiction
In poetic language and soft watercolor illustrations, this gentle lullaby of a tale evokes a story about finding refuge. Escaping flames and barbed wire, a mother, a baby, a boy, and a dog flee for their lives, climbing into a small sailboat to set off to sea. A polar bear, too, has come adrift. When wi ...Show more
Quicksilver by Nicolas Rothwell
$28.00 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction
Quicksilverbegins on a quiet day in contemplation of a lizard deep in the heart of the outback but quickly moves to the Russia of Tolstoy and Gorky, and on to other lands and times, bringing into play universal questions about the essential nature of the human condition.Rothwell's chief subject is alway ...Show more