Scribe is pleased to share that Life So Full of Promise has been longlisted for the 2023 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award.
31 July, 2023
Life So Full of Promise longlisted for the 2023 Nib
Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award is the only national literary award of its calibre and value to be presented by a local council. It recognises the most compelling research-based Australian literature and is awarded to nominated published works of any genre that best fulfill the criteria of high literary merit, quality of research, readability and value to the community.
This year’s judging panel, which includes poet Jamie Grant, writer and novelist Katerina Cosgrove, and publisher Julia Carlomagno, congratulated this year’s longlisted authors, commending them for excelling amid a strong field of nominations. They have commented that, ‘We are delighted with the fierce creativity and originality of the long-listed authors, with their unflinching research and evocative prose. Many of the long-listed books not only match but surpass our award guidelines, ranging from introspective, deeply felt works, to impassioned examinations of historical, social, and contemporary cultural issues to innovative narratives of family dynamics and hidden worlds. Combined, they give us a vivid picture of Australia and beyond.’
The shortlist will be announced on 4 September, and winners on 9 November.
Congratulations to Ross and the other longlisted writers.
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Life So Full of Promise
WINNER OF THE 2024 AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
Acclaimed historian and biographer Ross McMullin has again combined prodigious research and narrative flair in this sequel to Farewell, Dear People, the winner of multiple awards including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History.
Life So Full of Promise, his second multi-biography about Australia’s lost generation of World War I, features a collection of interwoven stories set in that defining era.
The rich cast includes a talented barrister whose outstanding leadership enabled a momentous victory in France; an eminent newspaper editor who kept his community informed about the war while his sons were in the trenches; an energetic soldiers’ mother who became a political activist and a Red Cross dynamo; an admired farmer whose unit was rushed to the rescue in the climax of the conflict; the close sisters from Melbourne who found their lives transformed; a popular doctor who was more fervently mourned than any other Australian casualty; and a bohemian Scandinavian blonde who disrupted one of Sydney’s best-known families.
A feature of the book is its coverage of cricket and cricketers of the era. It reveals the untold story of a keen all-rounder who was chosen in an Australian team to tour England, but surprisingly did not go. There is also a superb biography of a brilliant yet practically unknown cricketer whose stunning feat has never been matched. Other prominent characters include the most versatile top-level sportsman Australia has ever known, and a Test prospect whose violent postwar death shocked the nation.
The storytelling is superlative, illuminating and profoundly moving.
