WINNER OF THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD BEST YOUNG NOVELISTS AWARD 2025

WINNER OF THE KATHLEEN MITCHELL AWARD 2025

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD 2025

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MULTICULTURAL NSW AWARD 2025

SHORTLISTED FOR THE UTS GLENDA ADAMS AWARD FOR NEW WRITING 2025

‘Islanders must do everything together. We painted ngatu together. We crossed the ocean together. We settled on isles together. We lived with generations upon generations stacked in fibro houses together. We became half-White together. We stayed poor together. Together. Together. Together.’

For Meadow Reed, a half-Tongan, half-White girl, the world is bigger than the togetherness she has grown up in. Finding her way means pushing against the constraints of tradition, family and self until she becomes whole in her own right. Meadow is going to see that being a dirt poor Islander girl is more beautiful than she can even begin to imagine.

Dirt Poor Islanders is a potent, mesmerising novel that opens our eyes to the brutal fractures navigated when growing up between two cultures and the importance of understanding all the many pieces of yourself.