The 2023 Stella Prize longlist has been released! The annual literary award celebrating women and non-binary writers of both fiction and non-fiction is named after Australian author Stella Miles Franklin.
Past winners include some of my favourite books on recent years:
On 2 March 2023, the longlist was revealed with 12 nominees. I have not read any of the titles, and many of the authors are unknown to me, so I look forward to exploring these books further.
The 2023 longlist is as follows:
Teenage Cynthia's family is falling apart. Her mother has been taken away by police, and her father has walked out. Alone, she walks around the landscape of her outback home, looking for traces of her sister Mallory. The judges describe this novel as 'A powerful meditation on gendered, inherited and historical trauma.' This is Beaumont's debut novel.
Chan is a psychiatrist and author of speculative fiction. In this debut novel Chan has created Gaia, a hyper-consumerist virtual reality. Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time in Gaia, working, socialising and practically living in this online space, while their physical bodies lie suspended in pods in their apartment. I love speculative fiction, so will try to check this out.
Author Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja woman. In this memoir, she writes about country and family. The judges report that 'Dank shares with us a life that is at once extraordinary and familiar. Dank's words are lucid and beautiful. Her skill not only as a keen observer of her own life, but as a narrative builder and scholar of it, is obvious.'
From award-winning essayist Grills, comes a graphic memoir or illustrated memoir-in essays. Described as 'part feminist manifesto, part comic book', Grills explores identity. The judges describe this book as 'at times theoretical, heavy, but not dense, her work attends to an under-examined body of Australian literature.'
I adore the cover of this poetry collection! Holland-Batt's poetry is about the grief and loss of her father from Parkinson's disease. These poems reflect on mortality. Holland-Batt has previously been recognised with the 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for poetry. The judges write 'Accessible, lyrical and wise, this is a book from a poet at the height of her powers.'
This is Melbourne-based writer Adriane Howell's debut novel. Anja is an antiquarian, classifying furniture in deceased estates. When she finds herself needing a change, she leases a beachside cottage, but a ghostly presence haunts its grounds. The judges describe Hydra as a 'startling original novel' and 'a truly weird and awe-some book in the best sense of those words, with an eccentricity that is never posturing or forced.'
This biography is written by two sisters about their father. Jack Huggins grew up in Ayr, North Queensland. During World War II he was captured by the Japanese in Singapore and spent much of the war on the notorious Burma-Thailand Railway. His daughters seek to learn more about his journey. I have great admiration for Jackie Huggins and have always enjoyed the way she tells stories. I am intrigued by this book as so little has been published about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander soldiers and the Thai-Burma railway has fascinated me since reading Richard Flanagan's brilliant The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013).
Denny Tran is brutally murdered on a night out to celebrate his high school graduation. His sister Ky is devastated and enraged when bystanders claim to have seen nothing, so she attempts to track down witnesses herself. Set in Cabramatta in the 1990s, Lien writes about a richly diverse migrant community. This is her debit novel.
Journalist Louisa Lim has spent over a decade in China as a correspondent for BBC and NPR. In her book on Hong Kong, she not only explains what is happening in the city, but questions the role of journalism in shaping an understanding of the world by bearing witness. The judges say that this book 'is a vibrant international literary achievement, speaking to the shifting geopolitical moment we find ourselves in while also examining the ongoing legacy of imperialism and colonialism.'
This is probably the book I am most interested in of all the longlisters. Set in Depression-era Sydney, Iris Webber arrived looking for work. She busks with her accordion, and scams to make ends meet. She meets Maisie, a young sex worker, but queer desire is hardly punished. Written in the vernacular of the time, Iris depicts sly-groggers, gangsters and good-time gals in Sydney's underbelly.
Thuy On - Decadence
Following on from Turbulence (2020), Decadence is Thuy On's second collection of poetry. The judges describe this 'as a book of poems about poems... when the collection looks outside to apply or play out its theories, On provokes us as readers to reconsider the role of poetry in our lives.'
Veda Gray is a frustrated poet, needing some peace and quiet to write. A wealthy, childless couple, the Parishes, offer to take her son Owen so she can create. The judges describe this as 'an account of fictional poet Veda Gray struggling with the bounds of convention in a post-war Australia deeply inhospitable to women writers'. Author Preston is a Melbourne based writer and musician.
For more information and the complete judges comments, see the Stella Prize website.
Over the past few years, I have been having mixed feelings about the Stella Prize as the selection criteria has broadened to include more diverse genres. It seems odd to me that they have cast such a wide net, but at the same time ruled out plays or children's books. As a reader, I am not really excited by this longlist and there are only a handful of titles that I am keen to read - McGregor's Iris and Chan's Every Version of You. The short time period between announcements of long and shortlists also limits the ability to seek out these titles before the nominees are whittled down.
The Shortlist will be announced on 30 March 2023 with the winner announced on 27 April 2023.