A novel exploring the fraught but loving relationship between mothers and daughters just won the top prize at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.
abc.net.au/news/victorian-premiers-literary-awards-jessica-au/101915406Melbourne writer Jessica Au has won Australia's richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards for her short but "masterful" novel Cold Enough for Snow.
The winners of the six main award categories are eligible for the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature In the fiction category, Au's book was up against This Devastating Fever by Sophie Cunningham, An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life by Paul Dalla Rosa, Salonika Burning by Gail Jones, The Signal Line by Brendan Colley, and The Lovers by Yumna Kassab.
"Prizes, they do fade — you're left with ordinary life and ordinary time. And that's just time to think and time to read and time to be. And for me it's time to stare deeply into the eyes of my cat. And maybe if we're lucky, out of that time some writing comes — and that's when you can say all the things that are impossible to say in speeches like this."
She explained: "I wrote this in order to argue against individualism and against excessive faith in meritocracy and to argue instead that we must keep our focus on altering the everyday conditions of the many. "That collective storytelling, that collective knowledge that we all hold, can help return our ancestors home."
Now that the news is out, she plans to celebrate over a burger with friends. The prize money will be able to cover that – but Au intends to use it mostly to buy herself time to write. The manuscript for Cold Enough for Snow was rejected by two publishers before it won the Novel Prize. Au is grateful for her publishers' willingness to take a risk on it, saying the book's length and "quietness" may have put off less experimental publishers.
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