The book world is currently abuzz with news of the Baileys Prize longlist, but I’m here to talk about another literary award for women writers — and that’s the Stella Prize, the shortlist for which was announced in Australia yesterday.
The shortlisted titles are:
- Poum and Alexandre by Catherine de Saint Phalle
The $50,000 prize is for Australian women writers and only books, both fiction and non-fiction, published in 2016 were eligible. You can read the full announcement on the official website.
I plan on reviewing all the titles. Do keep coming back to this post as I will update the hyperlinks above as and when I review each title.
The winner will be announced on 18 April.
Reading Matters 
I’m planning on reading them all as well but disappointed that the Twitter book group run by the Stella Prize isn’t happening this year.
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Heard a lot of good things about the Twitter group… it didn’t work for me, cos, well, time zones. Any chance you could just do it without anyone “official” running it?
Also, reading these books is going to cost me a fortune. The two books I don’t have — Heather Rose and de Saint Phalle — are only available here as Kindle editions at about three times the normal cost.
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The Twitter group was great because it was immediate – looking back over tweets because of time zones is a waste of time (I know because I missed two weeks when I was in Hawaii one year and missed one week last year because I was in the Outback and had no phone coverage!). I did wonder about trying to get discussion going without a curator as such…
I’m reading the Rose at the moment – so far, it’s impressive and I can see why a few people I know have declared it their favourite book last year. The Phalle was the one I was least enthusiastic about – I bought it today (it’s also $$ here!). Still, I budget for the Stella Prize shortlist each year so can justify it… How much is the Phalle on Kindle for you? I think it’s about $13 here (still $$ for an ebook).
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The Phalle is £11.55, which is about $19!
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Yikes! I think it’s less than 200 pages as well… I’ll aim to read it next and let you know if it’s worth the investment!
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how infuriating to have both prizes make their announcements so close together….
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I know! They were both announced on International Women’s’ Day, so I suppose it makes sense, but the Bailey’s sadly drowns out the Stella by virtue of the fact it’s international (and every second blogger I follow has written about it!)
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I can see the logic but maybe the fact that the Stella didnt get the coverage should give them a hint on what to do differently next year
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Well, the Stella never gets coverage outside of Australia anyway (which is why I like to champion it), but it’s a pity its chance to shine on a wider stage is overshadowed by a big international prize like the Baileys Prize.
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Am rooting for ‘The Hate Race’ or ‘Between a Wolf and a Dog’!
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Hmm… not sure that’s the correct terminology to use when talking about Australian books 😲🤣 but have to admit they’re the two books I’m most looking forward to reading.
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