The shortlists for the 2021 Victorian Premiers’ Literary Awards have been announced, recognising the best works published in 2020 across seven categories.

The winners will be annonced at a digital ceremony Monday 1 February, 2021. The recipients of each category prize will be awarded $25 000, with the unpubliished manuscript winner awarded $15 000. The winners of each category also go on to contest the $100 000 prize for Literature.

The 2020 Prize for Literature was awarded to the play Counting and Counting, written by S Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack.

Check out the full shortlist, and highly commended entries, for each category below.

Fiction

• The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (Richard Flanagan, Knopf) | READ OUR REVIEW
• Our Shadows (Gail Jones, Text) | READ OUR REVIEW
• The Animals in That Country (Laura Jean McKay, Scribe) | LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST
• The Coconut Children (Vivian Pham, Vintage) | READ OUR REVIEW

Highly commended

• Revenge: Murder in Three Parts (S L Lim, Transit Lounge) | LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST
• Smart Ovens for Lonely People (Elizabeth Tan, Brio)

Nonfiction

• Songlines: The Power and Promise (Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly, Thames & Hudson)
• Body Count: How climate change is killing us (Paddy Manning, S&S) | LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST
• Show Me Where It Hurts (Kylie Maslen, Text)
• Blueberries (Ellena Savage, Text) | READ OUR REVIEW
• Witness: An investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice (Louise Milligan, Hachette)
• Fire Country: How Indigenous fire management could help save Australia (Victor Steffensen, Hardie Grant Travel)

Highly commended

• After the Count (Stephanie Convery, Viking)
• Hazelwood (Tom Doig, Viking)
• People of the River (Grace Karskens, A&U)
• British India, White Australia: Overseas Indians, intercolonial relations and the Empire (Kama Maclean, NewSouth)

Drama

• Wonnangatta (Angus Cerini, Sydney Theatre Company)
• SLAP. BANG. KISS. (Dan Giovannoni, Melbourne Theatre Company)
• Sunshine Super Girl: The Evonne Goolagong Story (Andrea James, Currency Press)

Highly commended

• Wherever She Wanders (Kendall Feaver, Griffith Theatre Company and Currency Press)
• Torch the Place (Benjamin Law, Melbourne University Publishing)

Poetry

• Ask Me About the Future (Rebecca Jessen, UQP)
• Case Notes (David Stavanger, UWA Publishing)
• Throat (Ellen van Neerven, UQP)

Highly commended

• Of Memory and Furniture (Bron Bateman, Fremantle Press)
• Turbulence (Thuy On, UWAP)

Young Adult

• The F Team (Rawah Arja, Giramondo)
• Metal Fish, Falling Snow (Cath Moore, Text)
• Where We Begin (Christie Nieman, Pan)

Highly commended

• The End of the World is Bigger than Love (Davina Bell, Text)
• The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (Garth Nix, A&U) | READ OUR REVIEW

Indigenous writing

• Tell Me Why: The story of my life and my music (Archie Roach, S&S)
• Kindred (Kirli Saunders, Magabala)
• Song of the Crocodile (Nardi Simpson, Hachette)
• Where the Fruit Falls (Karen Wyld, UWAP)

Highly commended

• Late Murrumbidgee Poems (John Mukky Burke, Cordite Books)

Unpublished manuscript

• Anam (André Dao)
• On A Knife’s Edge (Neela Janakiramanan)
• But the Girl (Jessica Zhan Mei Yu)

Highly commended

• Children of Tomorrow (J R Burgmann)
• Goblins (Patrick Hunn)
• The Guest House (Kylie Mirmohamadi).