Alexis Wright has made history by becoming the first author to win the Stella Prize for the second time with Praiseworthy, an epic work described by the judges as ‘a canon-crushing Australian novel for the ages.’

‘Many passages in Praiseworthy featured butterflies as if they were ‘force fields’, and an interpretation of this appeared when I flipped and rotated the swan image. The form dynamised the concept. A storm picks up on the front cover, pushes around the spine, and appears to tail out on the back cover.’

‘Radical metamorphic bodily changes occur throughout Naag Mountain during violent scenes and traumatic events, but most significantly, these transformations also take place throughout moments of deep love and celebration.’

Two Giramondo authors are shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize: Alexis Wright for her epic novel , and Sanya Rushdi for her deeply personal work of fiction, Hospital.

‘When the two moons are released from shadow, we unravel the living reel and project the propaganda onto the sky. When we hear the ringing of temple bells, we hear songs that have been backmasked. When we hear the singing of conch shells, we hear songs that have travelled generations to be heard.’

One of the richest literary prizes in the world, the Dublin Literary Award is presented each year to a novel written or translated into English. Wright is the first Australian to be shortlisted for the award since 2015. 

We celebrate one of Australia’s best-loved writers and a long-time supporter of Giramondo, David Malouf, with a recorded interview, Malouf’s contributions to HEAT, and a poetic tribute from Nicholas Jose.

‘I can talk for as long as you like, no problem. You’ll just have to tell me when to stop. How far back do you want to take it? Because Lily is what it’s about, in my opinion. And the mother is part of the story too. Father too. Goes without saying. But maybe better to pick them up later. Shall we start with the crash? Seems an obvious place.’

‘I lost my left arm today. It came off clean at the shoulder. Janice 2 picked it up and brought it back to the hotel. I would have thought it would affect my balance more than it has. It is like getting a haircut.’

‘I sought to recover the dignity, beauty and complexity of the girmityas, who otherwise only resided in the shadow of the archive and dissipating cultural memory. Living close to the sugar cane plantations on Minjungbal country, I came to understand history as a living, continuing phenomenon.’

‘If my parents were here, they would be gobsmacked. They would be astonished that this little story that I wrote even got published in the first place. This story, which was inspired by very ordinary people like them, to have been acknowledged like this is mind-blowing.’

‘I want to celebrate Astro, the robot boy I loved, his Pinocchio ache,/ a moment’s solace that time he found a robot girlfriend/ incandescent eyes at last find eyes to beam right back’

‘I have tried in this book to think about that time watching television not as escapism, but as, in some way, real experience – experience filled with memories and images and emotions that I carry with me into the real world.’ 

‘What I find in Monument is a shadow text. A way towards something else.’ The award-winning poet and writer Bonny Cassidy reflects on her first work of nonfiction.

‘Robinson seems to be eternally fascinating and inscrutable to us whitefellas. We have hoped him to have been some sort of noble settler, and yet.’

‘[Yee] tells this story with sparkling humour, wit, and stylistic verve, while paying sustained attention to historical circumstance – particularly everyday racism and the discriminatory government policies which affected Chinese migrants.’