The Bookseller.com

21st November 2008

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Authors compete for Aussie award

08.08.08

Clive James and Germaine Greer are both in the running for the inaugural Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards, which will be judged by prime minister Kevin Rudd himself, reports the Guardian.

The awards will be Australia's richest literary prizes, with tax-free cheques of A$100,000 (£47,000) awarded to both fiction and non-fiction winners, and are designed to celebrate the contribution of Australian literature to the nation's cultural and intellectual life. Six judges selected the shortlists, with the final decision on the winners to be made by Rudd after recommendations from the judges.

Fiction shortlist

Burning In by Mireille Juchau
El Dorado by Dorothy Porter
Jamaica: A novel by Malcolm Knox
Sorry by Gail Jones
The Complete Stories by David Malouf
The Widow and Her Hero by Tom Keneally
The Zookeeper's War by Steven Conte

Non-fiction shortlist

A History of Queensland by Raymond Evans
Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time by Clive James
My Life as a Traitor by Zarah Ghahramani with Robert Hillman
Napoleon: The Path to Power, 1769-1799 by Philip Dwyer
Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers by Philip Jones
Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
Vietnam: The Australian War by Paul Ham

Guardian

International Authors Prize