2025 NSW Literary Awards
A huge congratulations to Varuna alumni Hasib Hourani, for winning the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, and James Bradley, for winning the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, at last month's NSW Literary Awards.
Additionally, Varuna alumni Jeanine Leane, Kate Middleton, Gail Jones, Lucy Treloar, Emma Lord, Noëlle Janaczewska, Mykaela Saunders, Jumaana Abdu, Winnie Dunn and Graham Akhurst were shortlisted for various awards.
Hasib Hourani
Hasib Hourani is a Lebanese-Palestinian writer, editor, arts worker and educator living on Wangal Country in Sydney. His work has been published in Meanjin, Overland, Australian Poetry and Cordite, among others. He is a 2020 recipient of The Wheeler Centre’s Next Chapter Scheme and his 2021 essay, ‘when we blink’ was shortlisted for The LIMINAL & Pantera Press Nonfiction prize and published in their 2022 anthology, Against Disappearance. His debut book is rock flight (Giramondo 2024). [Source: NSW Literary Awards]
The judges noted:
“Hourani’s work is grounded in the history and personal experience of Palestinian dispossession, detailing connection to land and people. The writing locates the human and immediate in events that have been distorted, ignored or manipulated by government and media. The poems are rich with symbolic suggestion, crafted to speak against cruelty and legal incoherence. rock flight is a rendering of crimes, a guide for survival, and a recognition of the disruptive potential of paper, voice and stone.” [Source: NSW Literary Awards]
James Bradley
James Bradley is a writer and critic. His books include the novels Wrack, The Deep Field, Clade and Ghost Species, a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, and a work of non-fiction, Deep Water. His essays and articles have appeared in The Monthly, The Guardian, Sydney Review of Books, Griffith Review, Meanjin, the Weekend Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald. In 2012, he won the Pascall Prize for Australia’s Critic of the Year, and he has been shortlisted twice for the Bragg Prize for Science Writing and nominated for a Walkley Award. He lives in Sydney. [Source: NSW Literary Awards]
The judges noted:
“This book is distinctive, with its capacious mix of reporting from both the sciences and the humanities, its wide range of face-to-face interviews, and its simple delight in the sight, sound and feel of ocean waters. There is an abundance in Deep Water that almost threatens to break bounds. The transcendent power of the ocean is Bradley’s great connecting theme, and he explores it with exceptional skill.” [Source: NSW Literary Awards]
To find out more info, head to the NSW Literary Awards.