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.
Ruben by Bruce Whatley
$29.99 NZD
Category: Young Adult Fiction
Rubens dreams were of places that made no sense to him. Places that didnt exist. At least not anymore. Ruben is a triumph of Bruce Whatleys imaginative and technical skills.
Storm Whale by Sarah Brennan
$27.99 NZD
Category: Children's Fiction
Bleak was the day and the wind whipped down when I and my sisters walked to town . . . With a powerful, poetic text, wonderful to read aloud, and illustrations full of life and movement, this picture book about three sisters finding a stranded whale celebrates the majesty and vulnerability of nature an ...Show more
Taboo by Kim Scott
$37.99 NZD
Category: Fiction
From the two-times winner of the Miles Franklin AwardFrom Kim Scott, two-times winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, comes a work charged with ambition and poetry, in equal parts brutal, mysterious and idealistic, about a young woman cast into a drama that has been playing for over two hundred ye ...Show more
The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Break-throughs in Modern Art- by Sebastian Smee
$0.00 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction
Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic Sebastian Smee tells the fascinating story of four pairs of artists—Manet and Degas, Picasso and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, Freud and Bacon—whose fraught, competitive friendships spurred them to new creative heights. Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most fam ...Show more
The Art of Time Travel : Historians and their Craft by Tom Griffiths
$40.00 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction | Series: 1st
No matter how practised we are at history, it always humbles us. No matter how often we visit the past, it always surprises us. The art of time travel is to maintain critical poise and grace in this dizzy space. In this landmark book, eminent historian and award-winning author Tom Griffiths explores t ...Show more
The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon
$0.00 NZD
Category: Young Adult Fiction
"Indispensable."-Booklist (starred review) CARNEGIE MEDAL 2017 FINALISTSubhi is a refugee. He was born in an Australian permanent detention center after his mother and sister fled the violence of a distant homeland, and the center is the only world he knows. But every night, the faraway whales sing to h ...Show more
The Easy Way Out by Steven Amsterdam
$27.99 NZD
Category: Fiction
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ALS GOLD MEDAL 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE INDIE AWARD FOR FICTION 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD 2017 'Amsterdam is so damn good. He is up there with the best, Delillo and the like, original as Tsolkias, but most importantly he is a master storyteller in his own r ...Show more
The Enigmatic Mr Deakin by Judith Brett
$40.00 NZD
Category: Prize for Australian History
Alfred Deakin - scholar, spiritualist, prime minister - was instrumental in creating modern Australia. In the first biography of Deakin in more than half a century, the acclaimed political historian Judith Brett deftly weaves together his public, private and family lives. She brings out from behind the ...Show more
The Last Days of Ava Langdon by Mark O'Flynn
$37.00 NZD
Category: Fiction
"Ava Langdon is often not herself. Having fled her early life in New Zealand and endured the loss of her children, she now lives as a recluse in the Blue Mountains. Regarded by locals as a colourful eccentric, she dresses in men's clothes and fearlessly pursues her artistic path. All that matters to Ava ...Show more
The Library - A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells
$39.99 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction
"Excellent . . . Tracks the history of that greatest of all cultural institutions." --The Washington Post A love letter to libraries and to their makers and protectors, a celebration of books as objects, and an account of how the idea of the library continues to possess our imagination Libraries are m ...Show more
The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser
$36.99 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: very good
Winner of the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award Shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize "For a novel concerned with dislocation, there's a lot of grounding humor in The Life to Come. Most of it comes at the expense of Pippa and her ilk, but de Kretser's observations are so spot on, you'll forgive her eve ...Show more
The Ones That Disappeared by Zana Fraillon
$29.99 NZD
Category: Young Adult Fiction
Around the world, millions of people - including many children - are victims of human trafficking. These modern-day slaves often go unseen even in our own cities and towns, their voices silent and their stories untold. In this incredible book, Zana Fraillon imagines the story of three such children, Esr ...Show more