Edenglassie shortlisted for the 2024 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award
Congratulations Melissa Lucashenko, whose 'Edenglassie' has been shortlisted for the 2024 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award!
From 235 stellar entries, the shortlist has been whittled down to just eight books. The three judges, Dr Leigh Dale (chair), distinguished Townsville journalist Mary Vernon, and Professor Emerita Susan K. Martin of La Trobe University, now embark on an intensive rereading of the shortlist.
The full shortlist includes: Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton; Life As We Knew It: The Extraordinary Story of Australia’s Pandemic by Aisha Dow and Melissa Cunningham; Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville; Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky by Rebecca Lim; The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey; Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko; A Brilliant Life by Rachelle Unreich, and Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright.
The Award is given to the best book of the year, first published in Australia, that deals with any aspect of Australian life. In 2024 the Award gives the winning writer a $50 000 prize, and the H.T. Priestley Memorial Medal.
Judges' comments:
'Fresh perspectives and social upheaval are also central to Melissa Lucashenko’s 'Edenglassie' (University of Queensland Press), the title coming from an early colonial name for Meanjin/Brisbane. By focusing on two young couples – one living in the nineteenth century, one in the present – 'Edenglassie' takes readers into the experience of colonisation, and its reverberations in the contemporary world. Details of a horrific past are blended with comic interludes in the present, in a story that asks how people might live with the burden of violence.'
The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Townsville in October.
For more information, visit the official website here.
