Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen shortlisted for the 2022 Stella Prize

Congratulations to Evelyn Araluen whose book Dropbear has been shortlisted for the 2022 Stella Prize – the first year that poetry collections have been eligible.

Dropbear is a breathtaking collection of poetry and short prose which arrests key icons of mainstream Australian culture and turns them inside out, with malice aforethought.

Judges' report:

Dropbear is a breathtaking collection of poetry and short prose which arrests key icons of mainstream Australian culture and turns them inside out, with malice aforethought. Araluen’s brilliance sizzles when she goes on the attack against the kitsch and the cuddly: against Australia’s fantasy of its own racial and environmental innocence. She revels in difficult questions like “Can’t be lyric if you’re flora, right/Can’t be sovereign if you’re fauna, right?” And “Humans…did you really think all the Bad Banksia men were deadibones when they went to the bottom of the sea…?” Acerbic, witty, and with no reverence at all for the colony, Araluen remembers those dispossessed and voiceless, just as she predicts a hard-won future for her children – “look at this earth we cauterised/the healing we took with flame/I will show them a place/they will never have to leave”.

The 2022 Stella Prize longlist includes novels, short fiction, memoir, social history, a book-length essay, a graphic novel, and – eligible for the first time in 2022 – poetry collections. This year’s judging panel comprises Melissa Lucashenko (Chair), Declan Fry, Cate Kennedy, Sisonke Mismang, and Oliver Reeson.

The $50,000 Stella Prize is awarded annually to one outstanding book deemed to be original, excellent, and engaging. The 2022 Stella Prize winner will be announced on Thursday 28 April.