‘If my parents were here, they would be gobsmacked. They would be astonished that this little story that I wrote even got published in the first place. This story, which was inspired by very ordinary people like them, to have been acknowledged like this is mind-blowing.’

‘I want to celebrate Astro, the robot boy I loved, his Pinocchio ache,/ a moment’s solace that time he found a robot girlfriend/ incandescent eyes at last find eyes to beam right back’

‘I have tried in this book to think about that time watching television not as escapism, but as, in some way, real experience – experience filled with memories and images and emotions that I carry with me into the real world.’ 

‘What I find in Monument is a shadow text. A way towards something else.’ The award-winning poet and writer Bonny Cassidy reflects on her first work of nonfiction.

‘Robinson seems to be eternally fascinating and inscrutable to us whitefellas. We have hoped him to have been some sort of noble settler, and yet.’

‘[Yee] tells this story with sparkling humour, wit, and stylistic verve, while paying sustained attention to historical circumstance – particularly everyday racism and the discriminatory government policies which affected Chinese migrants.’

‘After some hectoring, Dale told them about the circumstances that lead to him being made redundant (‘who doesn’t wank at work?’ the eldest at the table said, and when the youngest was hesitant to support Dale, the older man yelled: “what are you a priest?!”). Dale laughed meekly with these people, who he felt a comfort with, a generation who had never picked him up on his behaviour.’

‘Prizes like these are always a particular blend of luck and happenstance, and I am truly grateful to whatever alchemy has allowed me to stand here tonight. I know for sure none of it would be possible without The Novel Prize, without Giramondo, without your support.’

‘[Jose] is a serious writer with an internationalist outlook that is not extractive – a rare thing – but eternally curious…His work often has a sense of mystery that shows his generosity also extends to readers. He’s not rushing to solve the world for us, or explain it, but opening our eyes to its wonders and complexities.’

Write the judges: Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow ‘signals a new direction in Australian literature’, and Lionel Fogarty’s Harvest Lingo is a book of intense commitment and power.’

‘I tried to take notes and wrap a narrative around all these events, to find parallels by way of allegory, to satirise the process itself as I went, allowing the march of 2022 to dictate the progress of the book. It was much more of an experimental process than I imagined, and it took a lot of work to bring it into some kind of order.’

Watch a recording or read a transcription of Fogarty’s acceptance speech, as well as a new poem, ‘Earth writes back to forward’.

‘I feel deeply honoured and really humbled to receive this award,’ Wright told ABC Arts of her Lifetime Achievement award. ‘But I also want to say, I’m not finished yet. I’ve got a lot more writing to come.’

Write the judges: ‘Praiseworthy is simply astonishing’; ‘Harvest Lingo offers a sovereign alternative to standard ways of poetic thinking and reading.’

‘Timor-Leste celebrated its twentieth anniversary as an independent nation in 2022. A new generation is writing their story now, with the future as a destination for hopes and dreams. It can be a happier ending. Let’s help with that.’ 

‘This book is not named for an imaginary figure from myth, or a character consigned to history, but rather the force she represents. A force which persists – fierce, intractable and undiminished.’