Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has a remuneration of A$25,000. The winner of this category prize vies with 4 other category winners for overall Victorian Prize for Literature valued at an additional A$100,000.

The prize was formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction from inception until 2010 when the awards were re-established under the stewardship of the Wheeler Centre and restarted with new prize amounts and a new name. The Nettie Palmer Prize was valued at A$30,000 in 2010. According to the State Library of Victoria which managed the prize from 1997 to 2010, "This prize is offered for a published work of non-fiction. Books consisting principally of photographs or illustrations are ineligible unless the accompanying text is of substantial length."^[1] Palmer wrote regularly for numerous newspapers all round Australia. She wrote on a wide range of topics, from environment to cultural events, reviewing all important books being published in Australia, America, Europe and elsewhere.

Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

Blue ribbon () = winner.

• 2011^[2]
  • Mark McKenna, An Eye for Eternity: The Life Of Manning Clark
    • Stephen Foster, A Private Empire
    • Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender
    • Fiona Capp, My Blood’s Country
    • Anna Krien, Into the Woods
    • Tim Bonyhady, Good Living Street
• 2012^[3]
  • Bill Gammage, The Biggest Estate on Earth
    • Simon Leys, The Hall of Uselessness
    • Alice Pung, Her Father's Daughter
    • Kerryn Goldsworthy, Adelaide
    • James Boyce, 1835: The Founding of Melbourne & The Conquest of Australia
    • Brenda Niall, True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack
• 2013 No award due to timing change - the next awards were presented in January 2014 for books published in 2013.
• 2014^[4]
  • Henry Reynolds, Forgotten War
    • Robert Kenny, Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir
    • Germaine Greer, White Beech
    • Kristina Olsson, Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir
    • Helen Trinca, Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John
    • Gideon Haigh, On Warne
    • NPY Women's Council, Commended: Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari
• 2015
  • Alan Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia: Volume Three: Nation (NewSouth)
    • Erik Jensen, Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen (Black Inc.)
    • Tess Lea, Darwin (NewSouth)
    • Tim Low, Where Song Began (Penguin)
    • Julie Szeg, The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama (Wild Dingo Press)
    • Don Watson, The Bush (Penguin)

• 2016
  • Gerald Murnane, Something for the Pain (Text Publishing)
    • Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan, Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed (MUP)
    • Karen Lamb, Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather (UQP)
    • George Megalogenis, Australia’s Second Chance (Penguin)
    • Drusilla Modjeska, Second Half First (Knopf)
    • Brenda Niall, Mannix (Text Publishing)

• 2017^[5]
  • Madeline Gleeson, Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru (NewSouth Publishing)
    • Deng Adut with Ben Mckelvey, Songs of a War Boy (Hachette Australia)
    • Maxine Beneba Clarke, The Hate Race (Hachette Australia)
    • Sarah Ferguson with Patricia Drum, The Killing Season Uncut (Melbourne University Publishing)
    • Kim Mahood, Position Doubtful (Scribe Publications)
    • Arnold Zable, The Fighter (Text Publishing)

• 2018^[6]
  • Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay & Disaster (Text Publishing)
    • Georgia Blain, The Museum of Words: A Memoir of Language, Writing and Mortality (Scribe Publications)
    • Kate Cole-Adams, Anaesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness (Text Publishing)
    • Mary-Rose MacColl, For a Girl: A True Story of Secrets, Motherhood and Hope (Allen & Unwin)
    • Alexis Wright, Tracker (Giramondo)

Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction

• 2010 Reading by Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life by Brenda Walker^[7]
• 2009 The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island, Chloe Hooper (Hamish Hamilton)^[8]
• 2008 The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica by Meredith Hooper (Allen & Unwin)^[9]
• 2007 Voyages to the South Seas: In Search of Terres Australes by Danielle Clode (The Miegunyah Press/Melbourne University Publishing)^[10]
• 2006 Margaret Michaelis: Love, Loss and Photography by Helen Ennis (National Gallery of Australia)^[11]
• 2005 Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev by Robert Dessaix (Picador/Pan Macmillan)^[12]
• 2004 Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities by Graeme Davison (Allen & Unwin)^[13]
• 2003 Broken Song: T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession by Barry Hill (Knopf/Random House)^[14]
• 2002 The Boyds: A Family Biography by Brenda Niall
• 2001 Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000 by Anna Haebich
• 2000 The White by Adrian Caesar
• 1999 M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio by Peter Robb
• 1998 Romulus, My Father by Raimond Gaita
• 1997 Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb
• 1996
• 1995 Georgiana: A Biography of Georgiana McCrae, Painter, Diarist, Pioneer by Brenda Niall
• 1994 Lyrebird Rising: Louise Hanson-Dyer of Oiseau-Lyre 1884-1962 by Jim Davidson
• 1993 Mr Bligh's Bad Language by Greg Dening
• 1992 Patrick White: A Life by David Marr
• 1991 Wild Card by Dorothy Hewett
• 1990 The Sixpenny Soldier by Roland Griffiths-Marsh
• 1989 Paradise Found and Lost by Oskar Spate

References