Dark As Last Night and Another Day in the Colony win at the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards
The winners of the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards were announced last night at a ceremony hosted by the State Library of Queensland.
We're pleased to announce that two UQP titles have won their respective categories.
University of Southern Queensland Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection
Dark As Last Nightby Tony Birch
Judges' comments:
Dark as Last Night is a superbly crafted set of stories that are in turn poignant, wry and well observed. Birch’s writing canvases a range of experiences and voices, from childhood to jaded adulthood, with technical grace and a telling eye for the sort of detail that resonates.
The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award
Another Day in the Colonyby Chelsea Watego
Judges' comments:
In this fierce, insightful collection of essays, Chelsea Watego writes under the skin of the nation to document the sustained systematic racism First Nations peoples of Australia experience daily. Through a powerful assemblage of critical race theory, memoir, philosophy, and archival imagery, Another Day in the Colony reiterates and reclaims First Nations stories and experiences to decentre and destabilize settler-colonial narratives and practices. In doing so, Watego carves out a space where Black intellectual sovereignty is free from the white colonial gaze.
Congratulations to Chelsea and Tony, and to all the shortlisted writers.
