I had the pleasure of watching the Stella Prize 2021 Longlist announcement this morning on YouTube. It’s actually the first time I took the time to do that in a while. I don’t think I’ve followed any major literary prize closely since Bernadine Evaristo had to share The Booker Prize win with Margaret Atwood. That still annoys me when I think about it.
Desiring to read more books that don’t seem to get much shine and looking for interesting books by women writers since this month is Women’s History Month and today is International Women’s Day I decided to take a moment to really see what the Stella Prize is all about.
The Stella Prize was created in 2013. It awards Australian women writers from all literary genres and the winner takes home a health prize of $50,000. From what I heard today the Prize has 3 main criteria: excellent, engaging, original. Sounds promising to me. It was even more so once I started hearing the name of the 12 titles that were chosen for the longlist from an original 160 entries. These 1é longlist authors will be awarded $1,000 in prize money, which is pretty damn cool. The 6 shortlist novels will be announced on March 25th and the winner on April 22nd.
I found this list to be very intriguing. I specifically looking forward to:
Revenge: Murder in Three Parts by S.L. Lim
Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore
The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha
Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing by Jessie Tu
Happily more of these titles are available than I thought. So looks like I might be using my Kindle a bit more this year. Will be tying to read a couple of these. Are you interested in the Stella Prize? If so, which books are you interested in reading?
If you’d like to pick up a copy of any of my recommendations or just shop for yourself please consider clicking my affiliate links for Blackwell’s or The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing. Thank you!
Blackwell’s Affiliate (Independent Bookstore/ Free Delivery)
https://www.blackwells.co.uk?a_aid=BrownGirlReading
The Book Depository
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading
Read Soul Lit Merch
I’d not heard of this prize, so thank you for introducing me to it! I’ve had a look at the longlist and think I’m most excited to check out Fathoms, The Wandering, and Song of the Crocodile.
Yes I’m interested in these 2 too but sadly Song of the Crocodile is not available in any format.
Oh wow, I have found a copy online but it would cost me £40 at the cheapest. Which is a tad outside my budget! Here’s to hoping that it will become more widely available at some point.