Sri Lankan born Michelle de Kretser wins NSW Premier's Literary Award
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 | 0 comments
Michelle de Kretser has added to her prizes for Questions of Travel at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, where her novel was named book of the year, as well as winner of the Christina Stead Prize for fiction and joint winner of the Community Relations Commission Award for a Multicultural NSW.
De Kretser said she was "gobsmacked’’ and ‘‘thrilled’’ to win her second Christina Stead Prize for her first novel set in Sydney. ‘‘Stead was such a Sydney writer,’’ she said. ‘‘She is an important writer to me, especially when I was trying to describe Sydney.’’
Sri Lankan-born de Kretser moved to Sydney from Melbourne five years ago, after winning the 2008 Christina Stead Prize for her previous novel, The Lost Dog.
Questions of Travel, which has already won the Miles Franklin Literary Award and Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction among others, follows 40 years in the lives of a Sydney woman, Laura, who travels the world as a tourist, and a Sri Lankan man, Ravi, driven to Sydney’s inner-western suburbs by political violence.
The fiction judges (of which I was one) said, ‘‘The quality of the prose in all dimensions, together with the resonance and power of its story, lifted Questions of Travel above the other titles on the shortlist ... In its smallness and largeness, in the particulars and the generalities of a story of human movement across time and space, [it] gives very modern voice to a tale both ancient and epic.’’
On her first visit to Sydney in the 1980s de Kretser walked up George Street from Circular Quay to Central Station as Teresa did in Stead’s 1945 novel For Love Alone to save money for her trip to London. In de Kretser’s novel, Laura walks along George Street in the opposite direction.
‘‘Sydney was a city of literature for me. I discovered it in the pages of novels by Stead and Patrick White and Jessica Anderson. Maybe one day a young bookish woman will come and traipse around Hurlstone Park,’’ she said with a laugh.
She did not make a political plea at the State Library of NSW last night, as she did for asylum seekers at the Prime Minister’s awards. However, she asked for her $10,000 share of the Community Relations Commission Award, which ‘‘tries to promote empathy and inclusion’’, to be shared among the other four finalists.
Andrew Bovell shared that prize for his play The Secret River, a creative adaptation of Kate Grenville’s novel. There were also joint winners of the Douglas Steward Prize for non-fiction - Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir by Kristina Olsson and Rendezvous with Destiny by Michael Fullilove.
Winners in 12 categories won a total of $275,000. A special award of $10,000 went to Rodney Hall for his lifetime’s work as an author, poet and advocate for Australian culture. (Sydney Morning Herald)
De Kretser said she was "gobsmacked’’ and ‘‘thrilled’’ to win her second Christina Stead Prize for her first novel set in Sydney. ‘‘Stead was such a Sydney writer,’’ she said. ‘‘She is an important writer to me, especially when I was trying to describe Sydney.’’
Sri Lankan-born de Kretser moved to Sydney from Melbourne five years ago, after winning the 2008 Christina Stead Prize for her previous novel, The Lost Dog.
Questions of Travel, which has already won the Miles Franklin Literary Award and Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction among others, follows 40 years in the lives of a Sydney woman, Laura, who travels the world as a tourist, and a Sri Lankan man, Ravi, driven to Sydney’s inner-western suburbs by political violence.
The fiction judges (of which I was one) said, ‘‘The quality of the prose in all dimensions, together with the resonance and power of its story, lifted Questions of Travel above the other titles on the shortlist ... In its smallness and largeness, in the particulars and the generalities of a story of human movement across time and space, [it] gives very modern voice to a tale both ancient and epic.’’
On her first visit to Sydney in the 1980s de Kretser walked up George Street from Circular Quay to Central Station as Teresa did in Stead’s 1945 novel For Love Alone to save money for her trip to London. In de Kretser’s novel, Laura walks along George Street in the opposite direction.
‘‘Sydney was a city of literature for me. I discovered it in the pages of novels by Stead and Patrick White and Jessica Anderson. Maybe one day a young bookish woman will come and traipse around Hurlstone Park,’’ she said with a laugh.
She did not make a political plea at the State Library of NSW last night, as she did for asylum seekers at the Prime Minister’s awards. However, she asked for her $10,000 share of the Community Relations Commission Award, which ‘‘tries to promote empathy and inclusion’’, to be shared among the other four finalists.
Andrew Bovell shared that prize for his play The Secret River, a creative adaptation of Kate Grenville’s novel. There were also joint winners of the Douglas Steward Prize for non-fiction - Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir by Kristina Olsson and Rendezvous with Destiny by Michael Fullilove.
Winners in 12 categories won a total of $275,000. A special award of $10,000 went to Rodney Hall for his lifetime’s work as an author, poet and advocate for Australian culture. (Sydney Morning Herald)
