# Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has an remuneration of A$25,000. The winner of this category prize vies with 4 other category winners for overall Victorian Prize for Literature valued at an additional A$100,000.
The prize was formerly known as the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction from inception until 2010, when the awards were re-established under the stewardship of the Wheeler Centre and restarted with new prize amounts and a new name. The Palmer Prize was valued at A$30,000 in 2010. The award was named after Vance Palmer, a leading literary critic. Palmer wrote reviews and presented a program called Current Books Worth Reading on ABC Radio. He also wrote books about Australian cultural life, including National Portraits (1940) A.G. Stephens: His Life and Work, (1941) Frank Wilmot (1942), Old Australian bush ballads (co-authored with Margaret Sutherland) (1951) and The Legend of the Nineties (1954). He was appointed in Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Literary Fund in 1947. The Palmer Prize was managed by the State Library of Victoria from 1997 to 2010.

## Winners and shortlists

Winners of the Overall Victorian Prize for Literature have a blue ribbon.
Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction, winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2011 | Kim Scott | That Deadman Dance | Winner |
| 2011 | Gail Jones | Five Bells | Finalist |
| 2011 | Roger McDonald | When Colts Ran | Finalist |
| 2011 | Craig Sherborne | The Amateur Science of Love | Finalist |
| 2011 | Dominic Smith | Bright and Distant Shores | Finalist |
| 2011 | Rohan Wilson | The Roving Party | Finalist |
| 2012 | Gillian Mears | Foal's Bread | Winner |
| 2012 | Anna Funder | All That I Am | Finalist |
| 2012 | Wayne Macauley | The Cook | Finalist |
| 2012 | Frank Moorhouse | Cold Light | Finalist |
| 2012 | Gerald Murnane | A History of Books | Finalist |
| 2012 | Carrie Tiffany | Mateship with Birds | Finalist |
| 2014 | Alex Miller | Coal Creek | Winner |
| 2014 | Michelle de Kretser | Questions of Travel | Finalist |
| 2014 | Richard Flanagan | The Narrow Road to the Deep North | Finalist |
| 2014 | Hannah Kent | Burial Rites | Finalist |
| 2014 | Tim Winton | Eyrie | Finalist |
| 2014 | Alexis Wright | The Swan Book | Finalist |
| 2015 | Rohan Wilson | To Name Those Lost | Winner |
| 2015 | Ceridwen Dovey | Only the Animals | Finalist |
| 2015 | Sonya Hartnett | Golden Boys | Finalist |
| 2015 | Mark Henshaw | The Snow Kimono | Finalist |
| 2015 | Wayne Macauley | Demons | Finalist |
| 2015 | John A. Scott | N | Finalist |
| 2016 | Mireille Juchau | The World Without Us | Winner |
| 2016 | Miles Allinson | Fever of Animals | Finalist |
| 2016 | Stephanie Bishop | The Other Side of the World | Finalist |
| 2016 | James Bradley | Clade | Finalist |
| 2016 | Steven Carroll | Forever Young | Finalist |
| 2016 | Charlotte Wood | The Natural Way of Things | Finalist |
| 2017 | Georgia Blain | Between a Wolf and a Dog | Winner |
| 2017 | Micheline Lee | The Healing Party | Finalist |
| 2017 | Sean Rabin | Wood Green | Finalist |
| 2017 | Philip Salom | Waiting | Finalist |
| 2017 | Jock Serong | The Rules of Backyard Cricket | Finalist |
| 2017 | Laura Elizabeth Woollett | The Love of a Bad Man | Finalist |
| 2018 | Melanie Cheng | Australia Day | Winner |
| 2018 | Steven Carroll | A New England Affair | Finalist |
| 2018 | Michelle de Kretser | The Life to Come | Finalist |
| 2018 | Sofie Laguna | The Choke | Finalist |
| 2018 | Michael Sala | The Restorer | Finalist |
| 2018 | Kim Scott | Taboo | Finalist |
| 2019 | Elise Valmorbida | The Madonna of the Mountains | Winner |
| 2019 | Robbie Arnott | Flames | Finalist |
| 2019 | Jay Carmichael | Ironbark | Finalist |
| 2019 | Morenno Giovannoni | The Fireflies of Autumn: And Other Tales of San Ginese | Finalist |
| 2019 | Gail Jones | The Death of Noah Glass | Finalist |
| 2019 | Melissa Lucashenko | Too Much Lip | Finalist |
| 2020 | Christos Tsiolkas | Damascus | Winner |
| 2020 | Yumna Kassab | The House of Youssef | Finalist |
| 2020 | Anna Krien | Act of Grace | Finalist |
| 2020 | Wayne Macauley | Simpson Returns | Finalist |
| 2020 | Tara June Winch | The Yield | Finalist |
| 2021 | Laura Jean McKay | The Animals in That Country | Winner |
| 2021 | Richard Flanagan | The Living Sea of Waking Dreams | Finalist |
| 2021 | Gail Jones | Our Shadows | Finalist |
| 2021 | Vivian Pham | The Coconut Children | Finalist |
| 2022 | Melissa Manning | Smokehouse | Winner |
| 2022 | Larissa Behrendt | After Story | Finalist |
| 2022 | Jennifer Down | Bodies of Light | Finalist |
| 2022 | Briohny Doyle | Echolalia | Finalist |
| 2022 | John Hughes | The Dogs | Finalist |
| 2022 | S. J. Norman | Permafrost | Finalist |
| 2023 | Jessica Au | Cold Enough for Snow | Winner |
| 2023 | Brendan Colley | The Signal Line | Finalist |
| 2023 | Sophie Cunningham | This Devastating Fever | Finalist |
| 2023 | Paul Dalla Rosa | An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life | Finalist |
| 2023 | Yumna Kassab | The Lovers | Finalist |
| 2024 | Melissa Lucashenko | Edenglassie | Winner |
| 2024 | Hossein Asgari | Only Sound Remains | Finalist |
| 2024 | Eugen Bacon | Serengotti | Finalist |
| 2024 | Jen Craig | Wall | Finalist |
| 2024 | Charlotte Wood | Stone Yard Devotional | Finalist |
| 2024 | Jessica Zhan Mei Yu | But the Girl | Finalist |
| 2025 | Melanie Cheng | The Burrow | Finalist |
| 2025 | Evie Wyld | The Echoes | Finalist |
| 2025 | Fiona McFarlane | Highway Thirteen | Finalist |
| 2025 | David Owen Kelly | Host City | Finalist |
| 2025 | Michelle de Kretser | Theory & Practice | Finalist |
| 2025 | Ella Baxter | Woo Woo | Finalist |

## Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction (1985-2010)

Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1985 | David Malouf | Antipodes | Winner |
| 1986 | Peter Carey | Illywhacker | Winner |
| 1987 | Janine Burke | Second Sight | Winner |
| 1988 | Murray Bail | Holden's Performance | Winner |
| 1989 | Rodney Hall | Captivity Captive | Winner |
| 1989 | Marion Campbell | Not Being Miriam | Finalist |
| 1989 | Nigel Krauth | The Bathing Machine Called the Twentieth Century | Finalist |
| 1990 | Tom Flood | Oceana Fine | Winner |
| 1990 | Thea Astley | Reaching Tin River | Finalist |
| 1990 | Susan Johnson | Flying Lessons | Finalist |
| 1991 | Finola Moorhead | Still Murder | Winner |
| 1991 | Nigel Krauth | JF Was Here | Finalist |
| 1991 | Sam Watson | The Kadaitcha Sung | Finalist |
| 1992 | Brian Castro | Double-Wolf | Winner |
| 1992 | Peter Carey | The Tax Inspector | Finalist |
| 1992 | Jan McKemmish | Only Lawyers Dancing | Finalist |
| 1993 | Brian Castro | After China | Winner |
| 1993 | Liam Davison | Soundings | Finalist |
| 1993 | Marion Halligan | Lovers' Knots | Finalist |
| 1994 | John A. Scott | What I Have Written | Winner |
| 1995 | Kate Grenville | Dark Places | Winner |
| 1995 | Brian Castro | Drift | Finalist |
| 1995 | Tim Winton | The Riders | Finalist |
| 1996 | Amanda Lohrey | Camille's Bread | Winner |
| 1996 | Shane Maloney | The Brush-Off | Finalist |
| 1996 | Sue Woolfe | Leaning Towards Infinity | Finalist |
| 1997 | Robert Drewe | The Drowner | Winner |
| 1998 | Richard Flanagan | The Sound of One Hand Clapping | Winner |
| 1999 | Roger McDonald | Mr. Darwin's Shooter | Winner |
| 2000 | Christopher Koch | Out of Ireland | Winner |
| 2001 | Peter Carey | True History of the Kelly Gang | Winner |
| 2001 | Rodney Hall | The Day We Had Hitler Home | Finalist |
| 2001 | Frank Moorhouse | Dark Palace | Finalist |
| 2002 | Richard Flanagan | Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish | Winner |
| 2002 | Chloe Hooper | A Child's Book of True Crime | Finalist |
| 2002 | John Scott | The Architect | Finalist |
| 2003 | Brian Castro | Shanghai Dancing | Winner |
| 2003 | Michelle de Kretser | The Hamilton Case | Finalist |
| 2003 | Sonya Hartnett | Of a Boy | Finalist |
| 2004 | Annamarie Jagose | Slow Water | Winner |
| 2004 | J. M. Coetzee | Elizabeth Costello | Finalist |
| 2004 | Malcolm Knox | A Private Man | Finalist |
| 2005 | Sonya Hartnett | Surrender | Winner |
| 2005 | Gail Jones | Sixty Lights | Finalist |
| 2005 | Ian Townsend | Affection | Finalist |
| 2006 | Peter Carey | Theft: A Love Story | Winner |
| 2006 | J. M. Coetzee | Slow Man | Finalist |
| 2006 | Kate Grenville | The Secret River | Finalist |
| 2006 | Carrie Tiffany | Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living | Finalist |
| 2007 | Alexis Wright | Carpentaria | Winner |
| 2007 | Steven Carroll | The Time We Have Taken | Finalist |
| 2007 | Rhyll McMaster | Feather Man | Finalist |
| 2008 | Helen Garner | The Spare Room | Winner |
| 2008 | J. M. Coetzee | Diary of a Bad Year | Finalist |
| 2008 | Michelle de Kretser | The Lost Dog | Finalist |
| 2008 | Helen Garner | The Spare Room | Finalist |
| 2009 | Christos Tsiolkas | The Slap | Winner |
| 2009 | Murray Bail | The Pages | Finalist |
| 2009 | Eva Hornung | Dog Boy | Finalist |
| 2009 | Nam Le | The Boat | Finalist |
| 2009 | Tim Winton | Breath | Finalist |
| 2010 | Peter Temple | Truth | Winner |
| 2010 | Peter Carey | Parrot and Olivier in America | Finalist |
| 2010 | Brian Castro | The Bath Fugues | Finalist |
| 2010 | J. M. Coetzee | Summertime | Finalist |
| 2010 | Craig Silvey | Jasper Jones | Finalist |