ALS Gold Medal

The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." ^[1] From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the Australian Literature Society, then from 1983 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, when the two organisations were merged.

Award winners

2020s

• 2024 : Alexis Wright – Praiseworthy ^[2]
• 2023 : Debra Dank – We Come With This Place ^[3]
• 2022 : Andy Jackson – Human Looking ^[4]
• 2021 : Nardi Simpson – Song of the Crocodile ^[5]
• 2020 : Charmaine Papertalk Green — Nganajungu Yagu ^[6]

2010s

• 2019 : Pam Brown — click here for what we do ^[7]
• 2018 : Shastra Deo – The Agonist ^[8]
• 2017 : Zoe Morrison – Music and Freedom ^[9]
• 2016 : Brenda Niall – Mannix ^[10]
• 2015 : Jennifer Maiden – Drones and Phantoms ^[11]
• 2014 : Alexis Wright – The Swan Book ^[11]
• 2013 : Michelle de Kretser – Questions of Travel ^[11]
• 2012 : Gillian Mears – Foal's Bread ^[11]
• 2011 : Kim Scott – That Deadman Dance ^[11]
• 2010 : David Malouf – Ransom ^[11]

2000s

• 2009 : Christos Tsiolkas – The Slap ^[11]
• 2008 : Michelle de Kretser – The Lost Dog ^[11]
• 2007 : Alexis Wright – Carpentaria ^[11]
• 2006 : Gregory Day – The Patron Saint of Eels ^[11]
• 2005 : Gail Jones – Sixty Lights ^[11]
• 2004 : Laurie Duggan – Mangroves ^[11]
• 2003 : Kate Jennings – Moral Hazard ^[11]
• 2002 : Richard Flanagan – Gould's Book of Fish ^[11]
• 2001 : Rodney Hall – The Day We Had Hitler Home ^[11]
• 2000 : Drusilla Modjeska – Stravinsky's Lunch ^[11]

1990s

• 1999 : Murray Bail – Eucalyptus ^[11]
• 1998 : James Cowan – A Mapmaker's Dream ^[11]
• 1997 : Robert Dessaix – Night Letters ^[11]
• 1996 : Amanda Lohrey – Camille's Bread ^[11]
• 1995 : Helen Demidenko – The Hand That Signed the Paper ^[11]
• 1994 : Louis Nowra – Radiance and The Temple ^[11]
• 1993 : Elizabeth Riddell – Selected Poems ^[11]
• 1992 : Rodney Hall – The Second Bridegroom ^[11]
• 1991 : Elizabeth Jolley – Cabin Fever ^[11]
• 1990 : Peter Porter – Possible Worlds ^[11]

1980s

• 1989: Frank Moorhouse – Forty-Seventeen ^[11]
• 1988: Brian Matthews – Louisa ^[11]
• 1987: Alan Wearne – The Nightmarkets ^[11]
• 1986: Thea Astley – Beachmasters ^[11]
• 1985: David Ireland – Archimedes and the Seagle ^[11]
• 1984: Les Murray – The People's Otherworld : Poems ^[11]
• 1983: David Malouf – Child's Play; Fly Away Peter ^[11]
• 1982: No Award ^[11]
• 1981: No Award ^[11]
• 1980: No Award ^[11]

1970s

• 1975–79:No Award
• 1974: David Malouf – Neighbours in a Thicket ^[12]
• 1973: Francis Webb
• 1972: Alex Buzo – Macquarie (play)
• 1971: Colin Badger
• 1970: Manning Clark

1960s

• 1966: A. D. Hope
• 1965: Patrick White – The Burnt Ones ^[13]
• 1964: Geoffrey Blainey – The Rush that Never Ended ^[14]
• 1963: John Morrison – Twenty-Three : Stories ^[15]
• 1962: Vincent Buckley – Masters in Israel ^[16]
• 1960: William Hart-Smith – Poems of Discovery ^[17]

1950s

• 1959: Randolph Stow – To the Islands ^[18]
• 1957: Martin Boyd – A Difficult Young Man ^[19]
• 1955: Patrick White – The Tree of Man ^[20]
• 1954: Mary Gilmore – Fourteen Men ^[21]
• 1952: Tom Hungerford – The Ridge and the River  : A Novel ^[22]
• 1951: Rex Ingamells – The Great South Land : An Epic Poem ^[23]
• 1950: Jon Cleary – Just Let Me Be ^[24]

1940s

• 1949: Percival Serle – Dictionary of Australian Biography ^{[25] [26]}
• 1948: Herz Bergner – Between Sky and Sea ^[27]
• 1942: Kylie Tennant – The Battlers ^[28]
• 1941: Patrick White – Happy Valley ^[29]
• 1940: William Baylebridge – This Vital Flesh ^[30]

1930s

• 1939: Xavier Herbert – Capricornia ^[31]
• 1938: R. D. FitzGerald – Moonlight Acre ^[32]
• 1937: Seaforth Mackenzie – The Young Desire It ^[33]
• 1936: Eleanor Dark – Return to Coolami ^[34]
• 1935: Winifred Birkett – Earth's Quality ^[35]
• 1934: Eleanor Dark – Prelude to Christopher ^[36]
• 1933: G. B. Lancaster (Edith J. Lyttleton) – Pageant ^[37]
• 1932: Leonard Mann – Flesh in Armour ^[38]
• 1931: Frank Dalby Davison – Man-Shy ^[39]
• 1930: Vance Palmer – The Passage ^[40]

1920s

• 1929: Henry Handel Richardson – Ultima Thule ^[41]
• 1928: Martin Mills (Martin Boyd) – The Montforts ^[42]

Shortlisted works

Year	Author name	Work nominated	Result	Ref
2024	Alexis Wright	Praiseworthy	Winner	[2]
	Jordie Albiston	Frank	Shortlisted	[43]
	Stuart Barnes	Like to the Lark	Shortlisted	[43]
	Katherine Brabon	Body Friend	Shortlisted	[43]
	J. M. Coetzee	The Pole and Other Stories	Shortlisted	[43]
	Omar Sakr	Non-Essential Work	Shortlisted	[43]
	Sara M. Saleh	The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat	Shortlisted	[43]
2023	Debra Dank	We Come With This Place	Winner	[44]
	Robbie Arnott	Limberlost	Shortlisted	[3]
	Fiona Kelly McGregor	Iris	Shortlisted	[3]
	Gavin Yuan Gao	At the Altar of Touch	Shortlisted	[3]
	Adam Ouston	Waypoints	Shortlisted	[3]
	Charmaine Papertalk Green & John Kinsella	ART	Shortlisted	[3]
2022	Andy Jackson	Human Looking	Winner	[4]
	Emily Bitto	Wild Abandon	Shortlisted	[45]
	John Kinsella	Pushing Back	Shortlisted	[4]
	S. J. Norman	Permafrost	Shortlisted	[4]
	Elfie Shiosaki	Homecoming	Shortlisted	[4]
	Maria Takolander	Trigger Warning	Shortlisted	[4]
2021	Nardi Simpson	Song of the Crocodile	Winner
	Robbie Arnott	The Rain Heron	Shortlisted	[46]
	Ronnie Scott	The Adversary	Shortlisted	[46]
	Ellen van Neerven	Throat	Shortlisted	[46]
	Luke Best	Cadaver Dog	Shortlisted	[46]
	Laura Jean McKay	The Animals in That Country	Shortlisted	[46]
2020	Charmaine Papertalk Green	Nganajungu Yagu	Winner	[47]
	Jordie Albiston	Element	Shortlisted	[48]
	Favel Parrett	There Was Still Love	Shortlisted	[48]
	Carrie Tiffany	Exploded View	Shortlisted	[48]
	Charlotte Wood	The Weekend	Shortlisted	[48]
2019	Pam Brown	click here for what we do	Winner	[49]
	Luke Beesley	Aqua Spinach	Shortlisted	[50]
	Laura Elizabeth Woollett	Beautiful Revolutionary	Shortlisted	[50]
	Charmaine Papertalk Green & John Kinsella	False Claims of Colonial Thieves	Shortlisted	[50]
	Jamie Marina Lau	Pink Mountain on Locust Island	Shortlisted	[50]
	Gail Jones	The Death of Noah Glass	Shortlisted	[50]
2018	Shastra Deo	The Agonist	Winner	[51]
	Peter Carey	A Long Way from Home	Shortlisted	[51]
	Eva Hornung	The Last Garden	Shortlisted	[51]
	Sofie Laguna	The Choke	Shortlisted	[51]
	Steven Lang	Hinterland	Shortlisted	[51]
	Gerald Murnane	Border Districts	Shortlisted	[51]
2017	Zoe Morrison	Music and Freedom	Winner	[52]
	Steven Amsterdam	The Easy Way Out	Shortlisted	[53]
	Georgia Blain	Between a Wolf and a Dog	Shortlisted	[53]
	Peter Boyle	Ghostspeaking	Shortlisted	[53]
	Heather Rose	The Museum of Modern Love	Shortlisted	[53]
	Rajith Savanadasa	Ruins	Shortlisted	[53]
2016	Brenda Niall	Mannix	Winner	[54]
	James Bradley	Clade	Shortlisted	[54]
	Tegan Bennett Daylight	Six Bedrooms	Shortlisted	[54]
	Drusilla Modjeska	Second Half First	Shortlisted	[54]
2015	Jennifer Maiden	Drones and Phantoms	Winner	[55]
	Joan London	The Golden Age	Shortlisted	[55]
	David Malouf	Earth Hour	Shortlisted	[55]
	Favel Parrett	When the Night Comes	Shortlisted	[55]
	Inga Simpson	Nest	Shortlisted	[55]
2014	Alexis Wright	The Swan Book	Winner	[56]
	Eleanor Limprecht	What Was Left	Shortlisted	[56]
	Luke Carman	An Elegant Young Man	Shortlisted	[56]
	Hannah Kent	Burial Rites	Shortlisted	[56]
	Christos Tsiolkas	Barracuda	Shortlisted	[56]
	Alex Miller	Coal Creek	Shortlisted	[56]
2013	Michelle de Kretser	Questions of Travel	Winner	[57]
	Jessie Cole	Darkness on the Edge of Town	Shortlisted	[57]
	Robert Drewe	Montebello	Shortlisted	[57]
	Christopher Koch	Lost Voices	Shortlisted	[57]
	P. A. O’Reilly	The Fine Colour of Rust	Shortlisted	[57]
2012	Gillian Mears	Foal's Bread	Winner	[58]
	Steven Amsterdam	What the Family Needed	Shortlisted	[58]
	Christopher Edwards	People of Earth	Shortlisted	[58]
	Diane Fahey	The Wing Collection: New & Selected poems	Shortlisted	[58]
	Favel Parrett	Past The Shallows	Shortlisted	[58]
	Anna Funder	All That I Am	Shortlisted	[58]
	Gail Jones	Five Bells	Shortlisted	[58]
	Alex Miller	Autumn Laing	Shortlisted	[58]
	Elliot Perlman	The Street Sweeper	Shortlisted	[58]
	Gig Ryan	Gig Ryan: New and Selected Poems	Shortlisted	[58]
	Jaya Savige	Surface to Air	Shortlisted	[58]
2011	Kim Scott	That Deadman Dance	Winner
	Peter Boyle	Apocrypha	Shortlisted
	Peter Goldsworthy	Gravel	Shortlisted
	Kirsten Tranter	The Legacy	Shortlisted
	Chris Womersley	Bereft	Shortlisted
2010	David Malouf	Ransom	Winner
	Emily Ballou	The Darwin Poems	Shortlisted
	Steven Carroll	The Lost Life	Shortlisted
	Eva Hornung	Dog Boy	Shortlisted
	Cate Kennedy	The World Beneath	Shortlisted
2008	Michelle de Kretser	The Lost Dog	Winner
	J. S. Harry	Not Finding Wittgenstein	Shortlisted
	Rhyll McMaster	Feather Man	Shortlisted
	David Malouf	Typewriter Music	Shortlisted
	Alex Miller	Landscape of Farewell	Shortlisted

See also

• Australian literature

References

1. "ALS Gold Medal". Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Retrieved 5 July 2024.
2. "Wright wins 2024 ALS Gold Medal". Books+Publishing. 8 July 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
3. ""Dank's 'We Come with This Place' wins ALS Gold Medal"". Books+Publishing. 5 July 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
4. "Jackson's 'Human Looking; wins ALS Gold Medal". Books+Publishing. 5 July 2022. Retrieved 7 July 2022.
5. "Simpson wins 2021 ALS Gold Medal for 'Song of the Crocodile'". Books+Publishing. 21 July 2021. Archived from the original on 21 July 2021. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
6. "Papertalk Green wins 2020 ALS Gold Medal". Books+Publishing. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
7. "Brown wins 2019 ALS Gold Medal". Books+Publishing. 3 July 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
8. "Deo wins 2018 ALS Gold Medal | Books+Publishing" . Retrieved 6 July 2018.
9. "Morrison wins ALS Gold Medal". Books + Publishing. 12 July 2017. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
10. "Brenda Niall's life of Archbishop Mannix wins Australia's oldest literary prize" by Jason Steger, The Age, 6 July 2016
11. "ALS Gold Medal - Previous Winners". Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
12. "Imaginary lives of the defeated in the realm of alienation", The Canberra Times, 21 February 1990, p33
13. Austlit – The Burnt Ones by Patrick White
14. Austlit – The Rush That Never Ended by Geoffrey Blainey
15. Austlit – Twenty-Three : Stories by John Morrison
16. Austlit – Masters in Israel by Vincent Buckley
17. Austlit – Poems of Discovery by William Hart Smith
18. "Papers of Randolph Stow" National Library of Australia
19. Austlit – A Difficult Young Man by Martin Boyd
20. Austlit – The Tree of Man by Patrick White
21. Australian Classics : 50 Great Writers and Their Celebrated Work by Jane Gleeson-White, p61
22. "Literary Award to T.A.G. Hungerford" The Canberra Times, 11 February 1954, p3
23. "Crouch Prize for Literature to R. Ingamells" The Age, 7 April 1952, p5
24. The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature p129
25. "News of the Day" The Age, 3 November 1949, p2
26. Note wrong title, see letter from Nettie Palmer
27. "Melbourne Author Wins Gold Medal" The Argus, 10 December 1948, p10
28. "Literature Prize" The Age, 19 November 1943, p2
29. "Medal for Author of Happy Valley" The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 February 1941, p13
30. "About People" The Age, 19 February 1941, p20
31. "Prize for Best Novel" The Argus, 19 March 1940, p1
32. "Literary Gold Medal : Award to Mr. R. D. Fitzgerald" The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 1940, p16
33. "Seaforth Mackenzie Wins 1937 Literature Prize" The Telegraph, 22 November 1938, p8
34. "Return to Coolami : Medal for Best Novel" The Argus, 21 September 1937, p11
35. "Gold Medal – Australian Literary Society" The Canberra Times, 31 October 1936, p2
36. "Best Novel of 1934" The Argus, 22 October 1935, p6
37. "Australian Literature : Society's Annual 'Drama Night'" The Age, 6 October 1934, p21
38. "In and About the City – Literature Award" The Courier-Mail, 10 November 1933, p10
39. "Literature Society's Gold Medal" The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 July 1932, p3
40. "Best Novel of 1930" The Argus, 16 June 1931, p6
41. "Australian Novel" The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 March 1930, p6
42. "Australian Literature Society" The Age, 8 October 1929, p13
43. "ALS Gold Medal 2024 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 6 June 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
44. "ALS Gold Medal 2023 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 30 May 2023. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
45. "ALS Gold Medal 2022 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 7 June 2022. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
46. "ALS Gold Medal 2021 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 18 June 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
47. "Papertalk Green wins 2020 ALS Gold Medal". Books+Publishing. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
48. "ALS Gold Medal 2020 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 20 May 2020. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
49. "ALS Gold Medal 2019 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 3 May 2019. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
50. "ALS Gold Medal 2019 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 3 May 2019. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
51. "ALS Gold Medal 2018 shortlist announced | Books+Publishing" . Retrieved 6 November 2018.
52. "ALS Gold Medal 2017 shortlist announced". Books + Publishing. 5 April 2017. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
53. "ALS Gold Medal 2017 shortlist announced". Books + Publishing. 5 April 2017. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
54. Austlit – 2016 ALS Gold Medal
55. "ALS Gold Medal 2015 shortlist announced", Books + Publishing, 5 May 2015
56. "ALS Gold Medal 2014 shortlist announced", Books + Publishing, 27 February 2014
57. "2013 ALS Gold Medal Shortlist", ANZ LitLovers, 19 March 2013
58. Austlit – 2012 ALS Gold Medal

External links

• Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL)
• ALS Gold Medal at AustLit