Seven finalists have been shortlisted for the 2022 ACT Book of the Year Award, from 43 eligible nominations received for books published in 2021.

Each year, the ACT Book of the Year Award recognises high quality contemporary literary works by ACT-based authors. This year’s nominations showcase excellent works across the genres of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

• Essays win 2021 ACT Book of the Year award (30 September 2022)
• Bernard Collaery exposé on ACT Book of the Year shortlist (19 September 2022)

ACT Book of the Year 2022 Shortlist

Milk, by Dylan van den Berg

Winner of the 2021 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Milk is a story of longing, of connection, and the ghosts of the past.

On the precipice of something life changing, a young Palawa man plunges into an exploration of self and Country.

Dylan Van Den Berg is a Palawa writer/performer with family connections to the Bass Strait Islands and the northeast of Tasmania. His play Way Back When won the Griffin Award (2020), was highly commended for the Max Afford Award, and was shortlisted for the Patrick White Playwrights Award and the QLD Premier’s Drama Award.

The Kindness of Birds, by Merlinda Bobis

A Canberra Critics’ Circle winner, and shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

In these linked stories, birds pay homage to kindness and the kinship among women and the planet. From Australia to the Philippines, across cultures and species, kindness inspires resilience amidst loss and grief. Being together ignites resistance against violence. We pull through in the company of others.

Merlinda Bobis is a Filipina-Australian writer and academic.

Two Afternoons in the Kabul Stadium: A History of Afghanistan Through Clothes, Carpets and the Camera, by Tim Bonyhady

Shortlisted, Mark & Evette Moran NIB Literary Award, 2022.

A social history of Afghanistan told through art, from the complete coverage of chadaris to mini-skirts, and back again; from ancient carpet designs to woven depictions of tanks and Kalashnikovs; from photographs of unveiled women to the execution of a woman videoed covertly by one of the few watching women.

Emeritus Professor Tim Bonyhady (ANU) is one of Australia’s foremost environmental and cultural historians. His books include the award-winning Good Living Street, The Colonial Earth, and The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat. He has curated two landmark exhibitions of Afghan war rugs.

• Afghan war rugs a testimony to creativity and resilience (11 July 2021)

Killernova, by Omar Musa

A collection of poetry and wood cuts that burns blindingly bright. The island of Borneo was once the most heavily wooded in the world, and its people have always carved wood beautifully. In Killernova, grappling with his heritage, Omar Musa remixes this ancient art form with fiery poetry forged in the stars.

Omar Musa is a Bornean-Australian author, visual artist and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has released four poetry books (including Killernova), four hip-hop records, and received a standing ovation at TEDx Sydney at the Sydney Opera House. His debut novel Here Come the Dogs was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award and Miles Franklin Award, and he was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015. His one-man play, Since Ali Died, won Best Cabaret Show at the Sydney Theatre Awards in 2018. He has had several solo exhibitions of his woodcut prints.

• Good news folks: ‘Good Folk’ is coming to Queanbeyan (2 February 2021)

Believe in Me, by Lucy Neave

Highly Commended for the 2022 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

A novel exploring the relationships between mothers and their children across three generations of one family. The book questions what we can ever truly know of our parents’ early lives, even as their experiences weave ineffably into our identities and destinies.

Neave’s first novel, Who We Were, was shortlisted for the ACT Book of the Year. Her short fiction has been published in Australian and American literary journals and in Best Australian Stories, and she was awarded a Griffith Review novella prize in 2018. She teaches creative writing at the Australian National University, where she is Associate Dean, Student Experience.

Failures of Command: The Death of Private Robert Poate, by Hugh Poate

A father’s quest to find out the truth behind the death of his soldier son. In 2012, Private Robert Poate and two other soldiers were killed during an insider attack in Afghanistan. Their killer, a supposed ally, was a Taliban sleeper in the ranks of the Afghan National Army.  The grieving families knew that the heavily redacted internal investigation report excluded incriminating facts.

Hugh Poate published the full in the hope that Defence will learn lessons from its failures and improve its standard of leadership. Apart from burying his son, writing this book was the most depressing thing he has ever done.

As Beautiful As Any Other: A Memoir of My Body, by Kaya Wilson

When Kaya Wilson came out to his parents as transgender, a year after a near-death surfing accident and just weeks before his father’s death, he was met with a startling family history of concealed queerness and shame. In this powerful and lyrical memoir, Wilson makes a case for the strength we find when we confront the complexities of our identity with compassion.

Kaya Wilson is a writer and tsunami scientist based in Australia. His non-fiction writing blends essay and memoir to explore universal themes of identity, gender, and origin. Kaya’s work has been published widely including by Pan Macmillan, Brow Books, The Guardian, and Overland. He won the 2019 Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship, was a runner-up in the 2019 Kill Your Darlings New Critic Award, was longlisted for the Kill Your Darlings unpublished manuscript award, and was shortlisted for Penguin Australia’s Write It Fellowship.

“Congratulations to the shortlisted authors for the 2022 Book of the Year Award,” Tara Cheyne, ACT Minister for the Arts, said. “The high calibre of all our nominees this year demonstrates the depth of writing talent in our city, highlighting their excellence and creativity.

“The Award recognises the important contribution our local authors make to the ACT’s arts and culture, and aims to inspire emerging local writers to be part of the Canberra story.

“If you have an idea, a story to tell, I encourage you to write that book and make that dream a reality,” Ms Cheyne said.

Nominations for ACT Book of the Year 2023 will open on 1 May.

The winner of the ACT Book of the Year will be announced in coming weeks.

Go to the artsACT website for more information.