Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has a remuneration of A$25,000. The winner of this category prize vies with 4 other category winners for overall Victorian Prize for Literature valued at an additional A$100,000.

The prize was formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction from inception until 2010 when the awards were re-established under the stewardship of the Wheeler Centre and restarted with new prize amounts and a new name. The Nettie Palmer Prize was valued at A$30,000 in 2010. According to the State Library of Victoria which managed the prize from 1997 to 2010, "This prize is offered for a published work of non-fiction. Books consisting principally of photographs or illustrations are ineligible unless the accompanying text is of substantial length." ^[1] Palmer wrote regularly for numerous newspapers all round Australia. She wrote on a wide range of topics, from environment to cultural events, reviewing all important books being published in Australia, America, Europe and elsewhere.

Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

Winners of the Overall Victorian Prize for Literature have a blue ribbon ( ).

Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction winners and finalists

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2011	Mark McKenna	An Eye for Eternity: The Life Of Manning Clark	Winner	[2]
	Tim Bonyhady	Good Living Street	Finalist	[2]
	Fiona Capp	My Blood’s Country	Finalist	[2]
	Cordelia Fine	Delusions of Gender	Finalist	[2]
	Stephen Foster	A Private Empire	Finalist	[2]
	Anna Krien	Into the Woods	Finalist	[2]
2012	Bill Gammage	The Biggest Estate on Earth	Winner	[3] [4]
	James Boyce	1835: The Founding of Melbourne & The Conquest of Australia	Finalist	[3] [5]
	Kerryn Goldsworthy	Adelaide	Finalist	[3] [5]
	Simon Leys	The Hall of Uselessness	Finalist	[3] [5]
	Brenda Niall	True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack	Finalist	[3] [5]
	Alice Pung	Her Father's Daughter	Finalist	[3] [5]
2014 [a]	Henry Reynolds	Forgotten War	Winner	[6]
	Germaine Greer	White Beech	Finalist	[7] [8]
	Gideon Haigh	On Warne	Finalist	[7] [8]
	Robert Kenny	Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir	Finalist	[7] [8]
	Kristina Olsson	Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir	Finalist	[7] [8]
	Helen Trinca	Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John	Finalist	[7] [8]
	NPY Women's Council	Commended: Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari	Finalist	[7] [8]
2015	Alan Atkinson	The Europeans in Australia: Volume Three: Nation	Winner	[9] [10]
	Erik Jensen	Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen [b]	Finalist	[9] [11] [12]
	Tess Lea	Darwin	Finalist	[9] [11] [12]
	Tim Low	Where Song Began	Finalist	[9] [11] [12]
	Julie Szego	The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama	Finalist	[9] [11] [12]
	Don Watson	The Bush	Finalist	[9] [11] [12]
2016	Gerald Murnane	Something for the Pain	Winner	[13] [14]
	Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan	Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed	Finalist	[15]
	Karen Lamb	Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather	Finalist	[15]
	George Megalogenis	Australia’s Second Chance	Finalist	[15]
	Drusilla Modjeska	Second Half First	Finalist	[15]
	Brenda Niall	Mannix	Finalist	[15]
2017	Madeline Gleeson	Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru	Winner	[16]
	Deng Adut with Ben Mckelvey	Songs of a War Boy	Finalist	[17]
	Maxine Beneba Clarke	The Hate Race	Finalist	[17]
	Sarah Ferguson with Patricia Drum	The Killing Season Uncut	Finalist	[17]
	Kim Mahood	Position Doubtful	Finalist	[17]
	Arnold Zable	The Fighter	Finalist	[17]
2018	Sarah Krasnostein	The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay & Disaster	Winner	[18] [19]
	Georgia Blain	The Museum of Words: A Memoir of Language, Writing and Mortality	Finalist	[18] [20]
	Kate Cole-Adams	Anaesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness	Finalist	[18] [20]
	Mary-Rose MacColl	For a Girl: A True Story of Secrets, Motherhood and Hope	Finalist	[18] [20]
	Alexis Wright	Tracker	Finalist	[18] [20]
2019	Behrouz Boochani	No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison	Winner	[21]
	Jessie Cole	Staying: A Memoir	Finalist	[22]
	Chloe Hooper	The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire	Finalist	[22]
	Bri Lee	Eggshell Skull	Finalist	[22]
	Sofija Stefanovic	Miss Ex-Yugoslavia	Finalist	[22]
	Maria Tumarkin	Axiomatic	Finalist	[22]
2020	Christina Thompson	Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia	Winner	[23] [24]
	Chloe Higgins	The Girls	Finalist	[25]
	Jess Hill	See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse	Finalist	[25]
	Lizzie O'Shea	Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology	Finalist	[25]
	Archie Roach	Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music	Finalist	[25]
	Gay’wu Group of Women	Songspirals: Sharing Women's Wisdom of Country Through Songlines	Finalist	[25]
2021	Paddy Manning	Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing Us	Winner	[26]
	Kylie Maslen	Show Me Where It Hurts	Finalist	[27] [28]
	Louise Milligan	Witness	Finalist	[27] [28]
	Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly	Songlines: The Power and Promise	Finalist	[27] [28]
	Ellena Savage	Blueberries	Finalist	[27] [28]
	Victor Steffensen	Fire Country: How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia	Finalist	[27] [28]
2022	Amani Haydar	The Mother Wound	Winner	[29] [30]
	Randa Abdel-Fattah	Coming of Age in the War on Terror	Finalist	[31]
	Danielle Celermajer	Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future	Finalist	[31]
	Veronica Gorrie	Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience	Finalist	[31] [29]
	Fiona McGregor	Buried Not Dead	Finalist	[31]
	Chelsea Watego	Another Day in the Colony	Finalist	[31]
2023	Eda Gunaydin	Root & Branch: Essays on Inheritance	Winner	[32] [33] [34]
	Shannon Burns	Childhood	Finalist	[32] [35]
	Louisa Lim	Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong	Finalist	[32] [35]
	Kylie Moore-Gilbert	The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison	Finalist	[32] [35]
	Sally Olds	People Who Lunch: Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living	Finalist	[32] [35]
	Sam Wallman	Our Members Be Unlimited: A Comic about Workers and Their Unions	Finalist	[32] [35]
2024	Ellen van Neerven	Personal Score: Sport, culture, identity	Winner	[36] [37]
	Kris Kneen	Fat Girl Dancing	Finalist	[36]
	Antony Loewenstein	The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world	Finalist	[36]
	Chris Masters	Flawed Hero: Truth, lies and war crimes	Finalist	[36]
	David Marr	Killing for Country: A family story	Finalist	[36]
	Jordana Silverstein	Cruel Care: A history of children at our borders	Finalist	[36]
2025	Susan Hampton	Anything Can Happen	Winner	[38]
	Lucia Osborne-Crowley	The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell	Finalist	[39]
	Bonny Cassidy	Monument	Finalist	[39]
	Clare Wright	Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy	Finalist	[39]
	Cassandra Pybus	A Very Secret Trade	Finalist	[39]

Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction

Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction winners

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
1985	Bernard Smith	The Boy Adeodatus : The Portrait of a Lucky Young Bastard	Winner	[40]
1986	John Bryson	Evil Angels	Winner	[41]
1987	Hugh Stretton	Political Essays	Winner	[42]
1988	Brian Matthews	Louisa	Winner	[43]
1989	Oskar Spate	Paradise Found and Lost	Winner	[44]
1990	Roland Griffiths-Marsh	The Sixpenny Soldier	Winner	[45]
1991	Dorothy Hewett	Wild Card	Winner	[46]
1992	David Marr	Patrick White: A Life	Winner	[47]
1993	Greg Dening	Mr Bligh's Bad Language	Winner	[48]
1994	Jim Davidson	Lyrebird Rising: Louise Hanson-Dyer of Oiseau-Lyre 1884-1962	Winner	[49]
1995	Brenda Niall	Georgiana: A Biography of Georgiana McCrae, Painter, Diarist, Pioneer	Winner	[50]
1996	Tom Griffiths	Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia	Winner	[51]
1997	Peter Robb	Midnight in Sicily	Winner	[52]
1998	Raimond Gaita	Romulus, My Father	Winner	[53]
1999	Peter Robb	M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio	Winner	[54]
2000	Adrian Caesar	The White	Winner	[55]
2001	Anna Haebich	Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000	Winner	[56]
2002	Brenda Niall	The Boyds: A Family Biography	Winner	[57]
2003	Barry Hill	Broken Song: T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession	Winner	[58]
2004	Graeme Davison	Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities	Winner	[59]
2005	Robert Dessaix	Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev	Winner	[60]
2006	Helen Ennis	Margaret Michaelis: Love, Loss and Photography	Winner	[61]
	Richard Broome	Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800	Finalist	[62]
	Anthony M. Gibbs	Bernard Shaw: A Life	Finalist	[62]
	Jacob G. Rosenberg	East of Time	Finalist	[62]
	Craig Sherborne	Hoi Polloi	Finalist	[62]
2007	Danielle Clode	Voyages to the South Seas: In Search of Terres Australes	Winner	[63]
2008	Meredith Hooper	The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica	Winner	[64]
2009	Chloe Hooper	The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island	Winner	[65]
2010	Brenda Walker	Reading by Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life	Winner	[66]

Notes

1. Prior to 2014, the award year was directly related to the year of publication. In 2014, the award year referred to books published in the previous year. That is, in 2012, the award went to books published in 2012. In 2014, the award went to books published in 2013.
2. Acute Misfortune was later the basis of the film Acute Misfortune

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