Adam Aitken wins the Patrick White Award

A huge congratulations to Adam Aitken, who has won this year’s $15,000 Patrick White Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Australian literature.

Commented Aitken:

I feel deeply honoured to win the Patrick White Award, which validates my lifelong commitment to poetry and storytelling. The recognition it confers gives me the self-belief to continue writing, as it has for previous recipients. I am more convinced now than ever before that each book I have written speaks of this country with all its complexities, and that my own struggle to express my part in it has been worth a lifetime of labour.

The Patrick White Award was established by Nobel Prize-winning author Patrick White to advance Australian literature ‘by encouraging the writing of novels, short stories, poetry and plays for publication or performance’. For the past forty-seven years it has been awarded to an author who has made an ongoing contribution to Australian literature but may not have received adequate recognition.

Aitken’s new book of poetry, Revenants, will be published in February 2022, and is available to pre-order.