The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize established by

Patrick White Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was a British-born Australian writer who published 12 novels, three short-story collections, and eight plays, from 1935 to 1987. White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, ...

. White used his 1973

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

award to establish a trust for this prize. The $25,000 cash award is given to a writer who has been highly creative over a long period but has not necessarily received adequate recognition. White stipulated that the award be announced the Friday after the

Melbourne Cup The Melbourne Cup is a Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and over, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria as part of the Melbou ...

to turn attention from sport to literature. The

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

award was reduced to $18,000 because of the economic slump, and in 2012 it was $23,000. In 2020 the winner received $15,000. Writers are automatically eligible without the necessity for submissions.

Winners

* 2022 Antigone Kefala * 2021 Adam Aitken *2020

Gregory Day Gregory Day is an Australian novelist, poet, and musician. Life Gregory Day is a novelist, poet, essayist and musician based in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. He is well known for his Mangowak novels, which document generationa ...

*2019

Jordie Albiston Jordie Albiston (30 September 1961 – 28 February 2022) was an Australian poet. Early life Jordie Albiston grew up in Melbourne, the second of four children. She studied music at the Victorian College of the Arts before completing a doct ...

* 2018

Samuel Wagan Watson Samuel Wagan Watson is a contemporary Indigenous Australian poet. Early life Samuel Wagan Watson was born in Brisbane and is of Mununjali clan, Munanjali and Germanic descent. His father is the novelist and political activist, Sam Watson (act ...

*2017

Tony Birch Tony Birch (born 1957) is an Aboriginal Australian author, academic and activist. He regularly appears on ABC local radio and Radio National shows and at writers’ festivals. He was head of the honours programme for creative writing at the Un ...

* 2016

Carmel Bird Carmel Bird (born 1940) is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and essays. She has written books on the art of writing, and has edited anthologies of essays and stories. In 2016, she was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. Writing ...

* 2015 Joan London * 2014

Brian Castro Brian Albert Castro (born 16 January 1950) is an Australian novelist and essayist. Biography Castro was born in Hong Kong and has lived in Australia since 1961. He was Chair of Creative Writing (2008-2019) at the University of Adelaide and Di ...

Patrick White Literary Award winner Brian Castro recalls his encounter with the grumpy neighbour
''The Age'', November 7, 2014 * 2013

Louis Nowra Mark Doyle, better known by his stage name Louis Nowra, (born 12 December 1950) is an Australian writer, playwright, screenwriter and librettist. He is best known as one of Australia's leading playwrights. His works have been performed by all o ...

"Louis Nowra wins $23,000 Patrick White Literary Award"
''Sydney Morning Herald'', November 9, 2013 * 2012

Amanda Lohrey Amanda Frances Lillian Lohrey (; born 13 April 1947) is an Australian writer and novelist. Career Lohrey completed her education at the University of Tasmania before taking up a scholarship at the University of Cambridge. From 1988 to 1994 ...

*2011 Robert Adamson *2010

David Foster David Walter Foster (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer and music executive who chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His music career spans mor ...

"Literary postman delivers again, winning mentor's bequest "
Nov 13, 2010 *2009

Beverley Farmer Beverley Anne Farmer (also known as B. Christou) (7 February 1941 – 16 April 2018) was an Australian novelist and short story writer. Personal life Beverley Farmer was born in Melbourne. She was educated at Mac.Robertson Girls' High School and ...

*2008

John Romeril John Henry Romeril (born 1945) is an Australian playwright and teacher. He has written around 60 plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, and is known for his 1975 play ''The Floating World''. Early life and education John Henry Romeril ...

"The Age", 8 November 2008, p13 *2007

David Rowbotham David Harold Rowbotham (27 August 1924 – 6 October 2010) was an Australian poet and journalist. Early life Rowbotham was born in the Darling Downs of Queensland, in the city of Toowoomba. He attended Toowoomba Grammar School and studied at ...

*2006

Morris Lurie Moses "Morris" Lurie (30 October 19388 October 2014) was an Australian writer of comic novels, short stories, essays, plays, and children's books. His work focused on the comic mishaps of Jewish-Australian men (often writers) of Lurie's generati ...

*2005

Fay Zwicky Fay Zwicky (4 July 1933 – 2 July 2017) was an Australian poet, short story writer, critic and academic primarily known for her autobiographical poem ''Kaddish'', which deals with her identity as a Jewish writer. Life Born Julia Fay Rosefield ...

*2004 Nancy Phelan *2003

Janette Turner Hospital Janette Turner Hospital (née Turner) (born 1942) is an Australian-born novelist and short story writer who has lived most of her adult life in Canada or the United States, principally Boston (Massachusetts), Kingston (Ontario) and Columbia (South ...

*2002

Tom Hungerford Thomas Arthur Guy Hungerford, AM (5 May 191519 June 2011) was an Australian writer, noted for his World War II novel '' The Ridge and the River'', and his short stories that chronicle growing up in South Perth, Western Australia during the Gre ...

*2001

Geoff Page Geoffrey Donald Page (born 7 July 1940) is an Australian poet, translator, teacher and jazz enthusiast. He has published 22 collections of poetry, as well as prose and verse novels. Poetry and jazz are his driving interests, and he has also writ ...

*2000

Thomas Shapcott Thomas William Shapcott (born 21 March 1935) is an Australian poet, novelist, playwright, editor, librettist, short story writer and teacher. Biography Thomas William Shapcott was born in Ipswich, Queensland, and attended the Ipswich Grammar ...

*1999

Gerald Murnane Gerald Murnane (born 25 February 1939) is an Australian writer, perhaps best known for his novel ''The Plains'' (1982). ''The New York Times'', in a big feature published on 27 March 2018, called him "the greatest living English-language writer ...

*1998

Alma De Groen Alma De Groen is an Australian feminist playwright, born in New Zealand on 5 September 1941. Biography Alma Margaret Mathers, born in Manawatu, grew up in Mangakino, a small township founded to serve a hydro-electric power station in the North I ...

*1997 Vivian Smith *1996 Elizabeth Harrower *1995

Elizabeth Riddell Elizabeth Riddell (21 March 1910 – 3 July 1998) was an Australian poet and journalist. Life Born in Napier, New Zealand, Elizabeth Richmond Riddell came to Australia in 1928 where she worked at ''Smith's Weekly'' and won a Walkley Award. She ...

*1994

Dimitris Tsaloumas Dimitris Tsaloumas (13 October 1921 – 4 February 2016) was a Greek-Australian poet. Biography Tsaloumas was born in Greece on the island of Leros, one of the Dodecanese islands, which were then under Italian rule (from 1912 to 1947). Consequen ...

*1993

Amy Witting Amy Witting (26 January 1918 – 18 September 2001) was the pen name of an Australian novelist and poet born Joan Austral Fraser. She was widely acknowledged as one of Australia's "finest fiction writers, whose work was full of the atmosphere an ...

*1992 Peter Cowan *1991

David Martin David or Dave Martin may refer to: Entertainment *David Martin (artist) (1737–1797), Scottish painter and engraver *David Stone Martin (1913–1992), American artist *David Martin (poet) (1915–1997), Hungarian-Australian poet and novelist *Dav ...

*1990 Robert Gray *1989

Thea Astley Thea Beatrice May Astley (25 August 1925 – 17 August 2004) was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin ...

*1988 Roland Robinson *1987

William Hart-Smith William Hart-Smith (23 November 1911 – 15 April 1990) was a New Zealand/ Australian poet who was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. His family moved to New Zealand in 1924. He had about "seven years of formal schooling" in England, Scot ...

*1986 John Morrison *1985

Judah Waten Judah Leon Waten Member of the Order of Australia, AM (29 July 191129 July 1985) was an Australian novelist who was at one time seen as the voice of Australian migrant writing. Life and career Born in Odessa to a History of the Jews in Russia ...

(posthumous) *1984 Rosemary Dobson *1983

Marjorie Barnard Marjorie Faith Barnard (16 August 18978 May 1987) was an Australian novelist and short story writer, critic, historian—and librarian. She went to school and university in Sydney, and then trained as a librarian. She was employed as a librari ...

*1982

Bruce Beaver Bruce Victor Beaver (14 February 1928 – 17 February 2004) was an Australian poet and novelist. Biography Beaver was born in Manly, New South Wales. He was educated at the Manly Public School and at the Sydney Boys' High School. He worked at ...

*1981

Dal Stivens Dallas George "Dal" Stivens (31 December 1911 – 15 June 1997) was an Australian writer who produced six novels and eight collections of short stories between 1936, when ''The Tramp and Other Stories'' was published, and 1976, when his last colle ...

*1980

Bruce Dawe Donald Bruce Dawe (15 February 1930 – 1 April 2020) was an Australian poet and academic. Some critics consider him one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.

*1979

Randolph Stow Julian Randolph Stow (28 November 1935 – 29 May 2010) was an Australian-born writer, novelist and poet. Early life Born in Geraldton, Western Australia, Randolph Stow was the son of Mary Campbell Stow née Sewell and Cedric Ernest Stow, a ...

*1978

Gwen Harwood Gwen Harwood (née Gwendoline Nessie Foster, 8 June 19205 December 1995) was an Australian poet and librettist. Harwood is regarded as one of Australia's finest poets, publishing over 420 works, including 386 poems and 13 librettos. She won nu ...

*1977

Sumner Locke Elliott Sumner Locke Elliott (17 October 191724 June 1991) was an Australian (later American) novelist and playwright. Biography Elliott was born in Sydney to the writer Sumner Locke and the journalist Henry Logan Elliott. His mother died of eclamps ...

*1976

John Blight Frederick John Blight (30 July 1913 – 12 May 1995) was an Australian poet of Cornish origin, his ancestors having arrived in South Australia on the ''Lisander'', in 1851. In the 1987 recording ''John Blight'', he describes his Cornish backgro ...

*1975 David Campbell *1974

Christina Stead Christina Stead (17 July 190231 March 1983) was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations. Christina Stead was a committed Marxist, although she was never a mem ...

References

{{reflist Australian literary awards Awards established in 1974 1974 establishments in Australia