Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA), in partnership with Australia’s leading essential building and infrastructure services provider ARA Group is excited to announce the longlists for the 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize.
This year’s longlists demonstrate the depth of talent of historical novelists with books that explore a diverse range of themes, eras and cultures. From tales set in Restoration England, across two World Wars, and China during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, through to Australian stories of First Nations’ resistance, intergenerational trauma, colonial survivors, and post-war migrants, the longlists demonstrate the power of the genre to recover lost, overlooked or deliberately erased histories.
Congratulations to the talented historical novelists who are in contention for a prize pool of $150,000.
The ARA Historical Novel Prize Shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 2 October 2024. The winners will be announced on 23 October 2024.
ADULT CATEGORY LONGLIST
The longlisted titles for the 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize – Adult Category are:
The Unearthed by Lenny Bartulin (Allen & Unwin)
Women & Children by Tony Birch (University of Queensland Press)
The Beauties by Lauren Chater (Simon & Schuster)
A Better Place by Stephen Daisley (Text Publishing)
Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville (Text Publishing)
The Visitors by Jane Harrison (HarperCollins Publishers)
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard by Natasha Lester (Hachette Australia)
Edenglassie by Melissa Lukashenko (University of Queensland Press)
To Sing of War by Catherine McKinnon (HarperCollins Publishers)
The judging panel for the Adult Category includes Tony Maniaty (Chair), Meenakshi Bharat, Sienna Brown, Catherine Chidgey and Michael Williams.
According to Chair, Tony Maniaty: ‘The broad range of titles entered in this year’s prize reflected the vibrancy and solid health of the historical fiction genre in Australia and New Zealand. While a substantial number of entries continued to employ traditional modes of storytelling, the degree to which many writers were emboldened to break the boundaries of conventional historical fiction was apparent, and welcome.
These entries shifted away from a classic focus on historical movements and events into more abstract interpretations of history, giving strong voice to characters often left out of official records, as well as approaching topics often not addressed in this area of literature – inviting us to consider notions of ‘the past’ in new ways. Fashion, art and architecture, and a deep engagement with landscape and settings, were some examples of different and interesting entry points into the genre.
The variety of voices was wide and refreshing, coming from both established and emerging authors, and the quality of writing within our chosen longlist was considered exceptional. Overall, an outstanding crop of historical fiction.’
CYA LONGLIST
The longlisted titles for the 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize – Children and Young Adult Category are:
Secret Sparrow by Jackie French (HarperCollins Publishers)
The Detective’s Guide to Paris by Nicki Greenberg (Affirm Press)
Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky by Rebecca Lim (Allen & Unwin)
Spies in the Sky by Beverley McWilliams (Pantera Press)
Silver Linings by Katrina Nannestad (ABC Books: An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers)
The Fortune Maker by Catherine Norton (HarperCollins Publishers)
Only Two: The Loss of the Loch Ard by Jackie Randall (Self-published)
The judging panel for the CYA Category includes Anna Ciddor (Chair), Danielle Clode and Lystra Rose.
According to Chair, Anna Ciddor: The judges for the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize were once again thrilled by the enticing variety of writing styles, historic periods, locations and topics in the Children and Young Adult Category. The long-listed titles reveal this variety – from a fun romp through 1920s Paris to a gripping fantasy about fortune-telling set in 1913 London, to the harrowing, confronting hardships of rural China during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward. Two long-list authors were inspired by stories from the World Wars that needed to be told. One created a tale about pigeons who carried spy messages in World War 2 – told from the point of view of the pigeons, and one used a fictional account to expose the hidden and dangerous role of women radio operators on the front line in World War 1. Whether the historical elements form the integral plot, like the story based on the sinking of the Loch Ard on the Victorian coast in 1878, or provide an intriguing and colourful setting for the joys and tragedies of the characters’ everyday lives in 1950s Australia, all the long-listed titles impressed the judges by their enthralling writing styles and their skill in bringing the past to life in a very real, accessible and relatable way for young people of today – which is what a CYA historical novel should do.
About the Prize
The ARA Historical Novel Prize is worth a total of $150,000 in prize monies. The Prize will award $100,000 to the Adult category winner, with an additional $5,000 to be awarded to each of the remaining two shortlisted authors. In the Children and Young Adult (CYA) category, the winner will receive $30,000, while the two shortlisted authors will receive $5,000 each.
The prize is open to novels where the majority of the narrative takes place at least 50 years ago by authors who are Australian or New Zealand citizens or residents.
The ARA Historical Novel Prize has been made possible through the generous patronage of ARA Group. The ARA Group, and its Founder, Executive Chair and CEO, Edward Federman, are committed to supporting the arts and literature.
ARA Group Founder, Executive Chair and CEO — and patron of the arts — Edward Federman said, “In its fifth year, we’re proud to not only continue, but amplify, the impact the ARA Historical Novel Prize will have on the literary community in Australia and New Zealand by rewarding authors for their contributions to our society’s extraordinary library of published works. I congratulate all the talented authors longlisted for the 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize.”
