WA's top literary prizes awarded

• Record-breaking number of entries from across Australia received

• Pilbara author awarded the prize for best WA history book 

Culture and the Arts Minister John Day has named Michelle de Kretser as winner of the $25,000 Premiers Prize at the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards for her novel, Questions of Travel.

Mr Day said the prestigious awards, now in their 31st year, received 507 entries across eight categories from authors right across Australia.

"The winning literary works were selected as the most inspiring and well written books in the categories of fiction, non-fiction, scripts, children's literature, poetry, young adult, WA history and digital narrative," he said.

The WA public voted Deborah Forster's The Meaning of Grace as their favourite in the People's Choice Award, sponsored by The West Australian.

The Minister said the Western Australian History category was won by a senior Ngulipartu man from the Pilbara, who was not being named due to reasons of cultural sensitivity.

"The autobiography, Kurlumarniny: We come from the Desert, was written in the man's native tongue as well as in English and is a remarkable account of an indigenous man's life in the mid-1900s," he said.

"This narrative chronicles his migration from the desert to the station country of the eastern Pilbara, his childhood growing up on Mt. Edgar Station, Australia's engagement in WWII, and the famous Pilbara station-worker's strike of 1946.

"There has been an increase in the documentation of important Aboriginal stories - both contemporary and historical - as well as a growing interest amongst Australian readers." 

Mr Day said WA had a solid foundation on which to nurture new literary talent, one of the many reasons more books written and produced in the State were being read by millions of readers globally.

The category winners are:

Fiction: Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser (NSW)

Published by Allen & Unwin

Non-fiction: Exile: The Lives and Hopes of Werner Pelz by Roger Averill (Vic)

Published by Transit Lounge

Scripts: The Fremantle Candidate by Ingle Knight (WA/NSW)

Published by Prickly Pear Playscripts

Children's Literature: (joint winners)

Pookie Aleera Is Not My Boyfriend by Steven Herrick (NSW)

Published by University of Queensland Press

Australian Backyard Naturalist by Peter Macinnis (NSW)

Published by National Library of Australia

Poetry: Cumulus by Robert Gray (Vic)

Published by John Leonard Press

Young Adult: Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan (NSW)

Published by Allen & Unwin

Western Australian History: Kurlumarniny: We come from the Desert (WA)

Published by Aboriginal Studies Press

Digital Narrative: My Planets Reunion Memoir by David P Reiter (Qld)

Published by IP (Interactive Publications)

        Fact File

• The awards began in 1982

• More information on  book awards 

Minister's office - 6552 6200