We May Not have Won the Booker but…

…over in Australia, 4th Estate has been winning plenty of other prizes. The People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks’ bestselling novel published in January, won the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Book of the Year Award and Literary Fiction Book of the Year. Then a week later Steven Carroll won the 2008 Miles Franklin Award, the most prestigious Australian literary award, for his novel The Time We Have Taken, the final part of a trilogy now known as ‘the Glenroy novels’. It was third time lucky for Carroll, who was nominated for the other two novels in the trilogy. Finally, Steven Conte recently won the 2008 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for his first novel The Zookeeper’s War . This is a brand new prize, worth A$100,000 (ÂŁ44,000) to two winners (one fiction, one non-fiction) which the PM announced in his election manifesto.

I’m not sure I can imagine either Brown or Cameron launching a literary prize in their next campaigns but in the current climate I wouldn’t rule anything out…thanks to Lizzy Kingston of HC Australia for the report.