Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

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The Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has a remuneration of A$25,000. The winner of this category prize vies with 4 other category winners for overall Victorian Prize for Literature valued at an additional A$100,000.

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The prize was formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction from inception until 2010 when the awards were re-established under the stewardship of the Wheeler Centre and restarted with new prize amounts and a new name. The Nettie Palmer Prize was valued at A$30,000 in 2010. According to the State Library of Victoria which managed the prize from 1997 to 2010, "This prize is offered for a published work of non-fiction. Books consisting principally of photographs or illustrations are ineligible unless the accompanying text is of substantial length." Palmer wrote regularly for numerous newspapers all round Australia. She wrote on a wide range of topics, from environment to cultural events, reviewing all important books being published in Australia, America, Europe and elsewhere.

Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

Blue ribbon () = winner.

  • 2011
  • Mark McKenna, An Eye for Eternity: The Life Of Manning Clark
  • Stephen Foster, A Private Empire
  • Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender
  • Fiona Capp, My Blood’s Country
  • Anna Krien, Into the Woods
  • Tim Bonyhady, Good Living Street
  • 2012
  • Bill Gammage, The Biggest Estate on Earth
  • Simon Leys, The Hall of Uselessness
  • Alice Pung, Her Father's Daughter
  • Kerryn Goldsworthy, Adelaide
  • James Boyce, 1835: The Founding of Melbourne & The Conquest of Australia
  • Brenda Niall, True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack
  • 2013 No award due to timing change - the next awards were presented in January 2014 for books published in 2013.
  • 2014
  • Henry Reynolds, Forgotten War
  • Robert Kenny, Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir
  • Germaine Greer, White Beech
  • Kristina Olsson, Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir
  • Helen Trinca, Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John
  • Gideon Haigh, On Warne
  • NPY Women's Council, Commended: Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari
  • 2015
  • Alan Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia: Volume Three: Nation (NewSouth)
  • Erik Jensen, Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen (Black Inc.)
  • Tess Lea, Darwin (NewSouth)
  • Tim Low, Where Song Began (Penguin)
  • Julie Szeg, The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama (Wild Dingo Press)
  • Don Watson, The Bush (Penguin)
  • 2016
  • Gerald Murnane, Something for the Pain (Text Publishing)
  • Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan, Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed (MUP)
  • Karen Lamb, Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather (UQP)
  • George Megalogenis, Australia’s Second Chance (Penguin)
  • Drusilla Modjeska, Second Half First (Knopf)
  • Brenda Niall, Mannix (Text Publishing)
  • Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction

  • 2010 Reading by Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life by Brenda Walker
  • 2009 The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island, Chloe Hooper (Hamish Hamilton)
  • 2008 The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica by Meredith Hooper (Allen & Unwin)
  • 2007 Voyages to the South Seas: In Search of Terres Australes by Danielle Clode (The Miegunyah Press/Melbourne University Publishing)
  • 2006 Margaret Michaelis: Love, Loss and Photography by Helen Ennis (National Gallery of Australia)
  • 2005 Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev by Robert Dessaix (Picador/Pan Macmillan)
  • 2004 Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities by Graeme Davison (Allen & Unwin)
  • 2003 Broken Song: T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession by Barry Hill (Knopf/Random House)
  • 2002 The Boyds: A Family Biography by Brenda Niall
  • 2001 Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000 by Anna Haebich
  • 2000 The White by Adrian Caesar
  • 1998 Romulus, My Father by Raimond Gaita
  • 1995 Georgiana: A Biography of Georgiana McCrae, Painter, Diarist, Pioneer by Brenda Niall
  • 1990 The Sixpenny Soldier by Roland Griffiths-Marsh
  • References

    Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction Wikipedia