We publish books that matter — narrative and literary nonfiction on important topics, and the best of local, international, and translated fiction.

Congratulations to Aisha Dow and Melissa Cunningham whose book Life As We Knew It: the extraordinary story of Australia’s pandemic has been shortlisted for the 2024 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award.

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.

The judges said that Life As We Knew It ‘gives sharply-drawn pictures of key players at work in managing Australia’s response to the pandemic, not shrinking from describing scandals, and failures of policy. Simultaneously pacy and level-headed, this is a book that anyone who lived through the early years of Covid-19 will want to read.’
 
An astonishing 235 entries have been whittled down to just eight books: Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton; Life As We Knew It 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 winner will be announced at a ceremony in Townsville in October.

Find out more at the official website.