The Jaguar wins the 2023 Stella Prize
UQP are thrilled to share the news that The Jaguarby Sarah Holland-Batt has won the 2023 Stella Prize. The announcement was made at a special celebration of Australian women's writing on Thursday 27 April. This $60,000 prize was made possible due to the generous support of the Wilson Foundation.
This is the second year poetry has been eligible for the award. Sarah's deeply personal poetry collection, The Jaguar, confronts what it means to be mortal with electrifying boldness. The Jaguar is an astonishing and deeply humane portrait of a father’s Parkinson’s Disease, and a daughter forged by grief.
Described by the judges as:
...a remarkable sequence about the death of the author’s father from Parkinson’s Disease: tender, memorable poems that capture grief and loss and love through unforgettable imagery, often blended with humour. Throughout the collection, Sarah Holland-Batt investigates the body as a site of both pleasure and frailty, writing equally effectively about sex, romance, and ageing.
Sarah says,
It’s both an indescribable joy and a deep honour to receive the Stella Prize for The Jaguar. I wrote this book during an intensely challenging period, as my father was dying, and just after. It was the friendship, generosity and camaraderie of women that not only saw me through this difficult time, but that has been the sustaining armature of my writing life. So it’s only right that I acknowledge all the women—publishers, editors, mentors, fellow writers, friends—who have supported and championed my work over the years; I simply wouldn’t be here without them. I’m thrilled to enter into the company of the extraordinary writers who have received the Stella, and so grateful for what this prize has done to transform the books and voices we value in Australian literature.
This is the second year that a UQP title has won the Stella Prize, and follows last years' winner Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen.
Sarah will appear in conversation at this years' Melbourne Writers Festival and Sydney Writers' Festival to discuss The Jaguar and her Stella Prize win. Congratulations, Sarah!
