The winner of the 2024 Voss Literary Prize is Alexis Wright, for Praiseworthy.

Here is the judges’ Report

2024 Voss Literary Prize

2 December 2024

THE PRIZE:

The Voss Literary Prize is designed to acknowledge the best Australian novel published in the preceding year.  It was first awarded in 2014, to Fiona McFarlane with her novel The Night Guest.

Subsequent winners have been Elizabeth Harrower, Leah Kaminsky, Mark O’Flynn, Bram Presser, Tim Winton, Tara June Winch, Amanda Lohrey, Larissa Behrendt and, last year, Robbie Arnott for Limberlost.

BACKGROUND:

The award is dedicated to the memory of Vivian Robert de Vaux Voss (1930-1963).  He was an historian and lover of literature, born in Central Queensland but studied History and Latin at the University of Sydney, and modern languages at the University of Rome.  The executors of his estate appointed the Australian University Heads of English to oversee and judge this award, hence we’re here today.

SHORTLIST:

Before I reveal the winner, I’d like to acknowledge the six shortlisted titles, all very strong entries drawn from a field of 43 novels:

André Dao                     Anam                                      (Hamish Hamilton)  

Peter Polites                God Forgets About the Poor    (Ultimo Press)

Sanya Rushdi                 Hospital                                  (Giramondo)

Ronnie Scott                Shirley                                     (Hamish Hamilton)

Alexis Wright                Praiseworthy                           (Giramondo)

Each book, of course, comes highly recommended by the judges.  As, indeed, do the books in the long-list which was released earlier – a really rich and varied collection of books published in 2023.

JUDGES:

I’d like to thank this year’s judges for their dedication and hard work:  

Kate Cantrell (University of Southern Queensland) 

Stephanie Green (Griffith University)

Elaine Lindsay (chair, Australian Catholic University)

Deborah Pike (The University of Notre Dame)

Emmett Stinson (University of Tasmania).

THE WINNER:

Alexis Wright, for Praiseworthy, published by Giramondo.

Here is the judges’ report…..

Praiseworthy is a work for the ages, a capacious Aboriginal epic based in the Queensland Gulf Country.  It wrestles with the universal question, how to survive in a world corrupted by greed and stupidity?

Alexis Wright’s answer lies in storytelling, in building an all-encompassing country of the mind rooted in ancient storylines but set in a continuous and recurring present where people and spirits interact, where the hell fires of colonisation hang like a grief cloud over the land, and where a culture dreamer (variously known as Cause Man Steel, Widespread Planet, and Omnicide) embarks on a quest to save civilisation (and make himself a motza) by harnessing the hauling power of five million wild donkeys.

In asserting the healing possibilities of story, Wright eviscerates its opposite, that particular Canberra narrative, amplified by social media, about the abuse of alcohol and children in Aboriginal communities.  This material, which describes the breakdown of Aboriginal culture and society, is so ubiquitous that the residents of the tiny town of Praiseworthy are sucked in by it: they want to trade their integrity for the trinkets of white lifestyle and minor positions of authority.

It is here that Wright’s critique of white denial of Aboriginal rights is both stringent and plangent.  Tommyhawk, eight-year-old fascist son of Cause, is obsessed by the rhetoric of the Intervention.  In the absence of a counter-narrative, he believes all Aboriginal men are paedophiles and reports Aboriginal Sovereignty, his teenaged brother, to the police for marrying (in a traditional sense) his fifteen-year-old sweetheart.  Tommyhawk wills Aboriginal Sovereignty to drown himself, all the while believing that the golden-haired Minister for Aboriginal Affairs will save him from his dysfunctional family and carry him off to live with her in Parliament House. 

Much has been written about Praiseworthy and the awards it has garnered for its poetic and expansive language, its exceptional mastery of craft and astonishing emotional range.  Wright has gifted her readers a total life-world, a fantastical imaginary that challenges western knowledge, logic and expectations, enriches Australian literature, and gives sovereignty to Indigenous voices.