Writing Australia announced the winners of this year’s awards at a ceremony at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, on Thursday 10 September 2026.
As Australia’s richest annual literary prize, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards offers a total tax-free prize pool of $600,000. Winners receive $80,000 per category, and up to four shortlisted entries in each category receive $5,000 tax-free. They recognise the exceptional contribution Australian writers, illustrators, poets and historians make to Australia’s cultural and intellectual life
Australian History: The Southern Frontier by Rohan Howitt (Melbourne University Publishing)
Children’s Literature: Song of a Thousand Seas by Zana Fraillon (University of Queensland Press)
Fiction: A Piece of Red Cloth by Leonie Norrington, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawa Burarrwanga & Djawundil Maymuru (Allen & Unwin)
Non-fiction: The Red House by Kate Wild (Allen & Unwin)
Poetry: Two Hundred Million Musketeers by Ender Başkan (Giramondo Publishing)
Young adult literature: Drift by Pip Harry (Hachette Australia)
Top image: Children’s Literature winner Zana Fraillon (left) with Larissa Behrendt from Writing Australia