News Archive

A PhD graduate from The University of Western Australia, Kim Scott, has won Australia's most illustrious literary prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award , for the second time.

The first indigenous author to win the prize, the West Australian author's novel That Deadman Dance was announced 2011 winner of the $50,000 prize at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne.

Earlier this year, Kim Scott became the first Indigenous author to win the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best book in South-East Asia and the Pacific.

His winning third novel, That Deadman Dance , is about the harmonious relations between his Noongar people of south-western Australia and the early settlers and the way those relationships deteriorated as white settlement developed. The novel grew out of research Kim conducted which showed the adaptability of the Noongar people in the region.

Among his other novels and short stories Kim Scott authored Benang: From the Heart, a co-winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2000

Also, PhD student Stephen Daisley won the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the 2011 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.

The judges described the former New Zealand soldier's book Traitor as "... an impressive work by this first time author."

The Awards, established in 1979, were Australia's first premier's awards. In their 32 year history, they have honoured many of the nation's greatest writers, including UWA graduate Shaun Tan, David Malouf and Jane Campion.

The full list of winners can be found at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2011 web page .

Kim Scott and Stephen Daisley have also been short-listed for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction which will be announced in Canberra on July 8.