# Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has a 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 Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-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 Nettie Palmer Prize was valued at A$30,000 in 2010. According to the State Library of Victoria which managed the prize from 1997 to 2010, "This prize is offered for a published work of non-fiction. Books consisting principally of photographs or illustrations are ineligible unless the accompanying text is of substantial length." Palmer wrote regularly for numerous newspapers all round Australia. She wrote on a wide range of topics, from environment to cultural events, reviewing all important books being published in Australia, America, Europe and elsewhere.

## Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

Winners of the Overall Victorian Prize for Literature have a blue ribbon.
Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2011 | Mark McKenna | An Eye for Eternity: The Life Of Manning Clark | Winner |
| 2011 | Tim Bonyhady | Good Living Street | Finalist |
| 2011 | Fiona Capp | My Blood’s Country | Finalist |
| 2011 | Cordelia Fine | Delusions of Gender | Finalist |
| 2011 | Stephen Foster | A Private Empire | Finalist |
| 2011 | Anna Krien | Into the Woods | Finalist |
| 2012 | Bill Gammage | The Biggest Estate on Earth | Winner |
| 2012 | James Boyce | 1835: The Founding of Melbourne & The Conquest of Australia | Finalist |
| 2012 | Kerryn Goldsworthy | Adelaide | Finalist |
| 2012 | Simon Leys | The Hall of Uselessness | Finalist |
| 2012 | Brenda Niall | True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack | Finalist |
| 2012 | Alice Pung | Her Father's Daughter | Finalist |
| 2014 | Henry Reynolds | Forgotten War | Winner |
| 2014 | Germaine Greer | White Beech | Finalist |
| 2014 | Gideon Haigh | On Warne | Finalist |
| 2014 | Robert Kenny | Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir | Finalist |
| 2014 | Kristina Olsson | Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir | Finalist |
| 2014 | Helen Trinca | Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John | Finalist |
| 2014 | NPY Women's Council | Commended: Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari | Finalist |
| 2015 | Alan Atkinson | The Europeans in Australia: Volume Three: Nation | Winner |
| 2015 | Erik Jensen | Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen | Finalist |
| 2015 | Tess Lea | Darwin | Finalist |
| 2015 | Tim Low | Where Song Began | Finalist |
| 2015 | Julie Szego | The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama | Finalist |
| 2015 | Don Watson | The Bush | Finalist |
| 2016 | Gerald Murnane | Something for the Pain | Winner |
| 2016 | Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan | Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed | Finalist |
| 2016 | Karen Lamb | Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather | Finalist |
| 2016 | George Megalogenis | Australia’s Second Chance | Finalist |
| 2016 | Drusilla Modjeska | Second Half First | Finalist |
| 2016 | Brenda Niall | Mannix | Finalist |
| 2017 | Madeline Gleeson | Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru | Winner |
| 2017 | Deng Adut with Ben Mckelvey | Songs of a War Boy | Finalist |
| 2017 | Maxine Beneba Clarke | The Hate Race | Finalist |
| 2017 | Sarah Ferguson with Patricia Drum | The Killing Season Uncut | Finalist |
| 2017 | Kim Mahood | Position Doubtful | Finalist |
| 2017 | Arnold Zable | The Fighter | Finalist |
| 2018 | Sarah Krasnostein | The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay & Disaster | Winner |
| 2018 | Georgia Blain | The Museum of Words: A Memoir of Language, Writing and Mortality | Finalist |
| 2018 | Kate Cole-Adams | Anaesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness | Finalist |
| 2018 | Mary-Rose MacColl | For a Girl: A True Story of Secrets, Motherhood and Hope | Finalist |
| 2018 | Alexis Wright | Tracker | Finalist |
| 2019 | Behrouz Boochani | No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison | Winner |
| 2019 | Jessie Cole | Staying: A Memoir | Finalist |
| 2019 | Chloe Hooper | The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire | Finalist |
| 2019 | Bri Lee | Eggshell Skull | Finalist |
| 2019 | Sofija Stefanovic | Miss Ex-Yugoslavia | Finalist |
| 2019 | Maria Tumarkin | Axiomatic | Finalist |
| 2020 | Christina Thompson | Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia | Winner |
| 2020 | Chloe Higgins | The Girls | Finalist |
| 2020 | Jess Hill | See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse | Finalist |
| 2020 | Lizzie O'Shea | Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology | Finalist |
| 2020 | Archie Roach | Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music | Finalist |
| 2020 | Gay’wu Group of Women | Songspirals: Sharing Women's Wisdom of Country Through Songlines | Finalist |
| 2021 | Paddy Manning | Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing Us | Winner |
| 2021 | Kylie Maslen | Show Me Where It Hurts | Finalist |
| 2021 | Louise Milligan | Witness: An Investigation into the Brutal Cost of Seeking Justice | Finalist |
| 2021 | Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly | Songlines: The Power and Promise | Finalist |
| 2021 | Ellena Savage | Blueberries | Finalist |
| 2021 | Victor Steffensen | Fire Country: How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia | Finalist |
| 2022 | Amani Haydar | The Mother Wound | Winner |
| 2022 | Randa Abdel-Fattah | Coming of Age in the War on Terror | Finalist |
| 2022 | Danielle Celermajer | Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future | Finalist |
| 2022 | Veronica Gorrie | Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience | Finalist |
| 2022 | Fiona McGregor | Buried Not Dead | Finalist |
| 2022 | Chelsea Watego | Another Day in the Colony | Finalist |
| 2023 | Eda Gunaydin | Root & Branch: Essays on Inheritance | Winner |
| 2023 | Shannon Burns | Childhood | Finalist |
| 2023 | Louisa Lim | Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong | Finalist |
| 2023 | Kylie Moore-Gilbert | The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison | Finalist |
| 2023 | Sally Olds | People Who Lunch: Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living | Finalist |
| 2023 | Sam Wallman | Our Members Be Unlimited: A Comic about Workers and Their Unions | Finalist |
| 2024 | Ellen van Neerven | Personal Score: Sport, culture, identity | Winner |
| 2024 | Kris Kneen | Fat Girl Dancing | Finalist |
| 2024 | Antony Loewenstein | The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world | Finalist |
| 2024 | Chris Masters | Flawed Hero: Truth, lies and war crimes | Finalist |
| 2024 | David Marr | Killing for Country: A family story | Finalist |
| 2024 | Jordana Silverstein | Cruel Care: A history of children at our borders | Finalist |
| 2025 | Susan Hampton | Anything Can Happen | Finalist |
| 2025 | Lucia Osborn-Crowley | The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell | Finalist |
| 2025 | Bonny Cassidy | Monument | Finalist |
| 2025 | Clare Wright | Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy | Finalist |
| 2025 | Cassandra Pybus | A Very Secret Trade | Finalist |

## Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction

Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction winners :
| Year | Author | Title |
| 1985 | Bernard Smith | The Boy Adeodatus : The Portrait of a Lucky Young Bastard |
| 1986 | John Bryson | Evil Angels |
| 1987 | Hugh Stretton | Political Essays |
| 1988 | Brian Matthews | Louisa |
| 1989 | Oskar Spate | Paradise Found and Lost |
| 1990 | Roland Griffiths-Marsh | The Sixpenny Soldier |
| 1991 | Dorothy Hewett | Wild Card |
| 1992 | David Marr | Patrick White: A Life |
| 1993 | Greg Dening | Mr Bligh's Bad Language |
| 1994 | Jim Davidson | Lyrebird Rising: Louise Hanson-Dyer of Oiseau-Lyre 1884-1962 |
| 1995 | Brenda Niall | Georgiana: A Biography of Georgiana McCrae, Painter, Diarist, Pioneer |
| 1996 | | |
| 1997 | Peter Robb | Midnight in Sicily |
| 1998 | Raimond Gaita | Romulus, My Father |
| 1999 | Peter Robb | M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio |
| 2000 | Adrian Caesar | The White |
| 2001 | Anna Haebich | Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000 |
| 2002 | Brenda Niall | The Boyds: A Family Biography |
| 2003 | Barry Hill | Broken Song: T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession |
| 2004 | Graeme Davison | Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities |
| 2005 | Robert Dessaix | Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev |
| 2006 | Helen Ennis | Margaret Michaelis: Love, Loss and Photography |
| 2007 | Danielle Clode | Voyages to the South Seas: In Search of Terres Australes |
| 2008 | Meredith Hooper | The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica |
| 2009 | Chloe Hooper | The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island |
| 2010 | Brenda Walker | Reading by Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life |