Tara June Winch has become the first Indigenous Australian to win both of Australia’s major writing prizes in a year, taking out the $80,000 fiction category for the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary award on Thursday after winning the $60,000 Miles Franklin in July.
This year’s awards, announced on Thursday, included a record showing for Indigenous writers and writers of colour, with the Gay’wu Group of Women winning the non-fiction category for Songspirals; the Darug duo of Jasmine Seymour and Leanne Mulgo Watson winning in the children’s category for Cooee Mittigar; and Omar Sakr becoming the first Arab Australian Muslim poet to be shortlisted – and then to win – in the poetry category for his book the Lost Arabs.
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