The selection committee has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History:
- Robbie Arnott, Limberlost (Text)
Set in a vividly captured bygone Tasmania, the third novel by the award-winning author of Flames and The Rain Heron, Limberlost, is an extraordinary chronicle of life and land: of carnage and kindness, blood ties and love.
- Ann Cripps, Gardeners, Plant Collectors, Friends: Hobart Town and beyond (Fullers)
Ann Cripps has profiled and interwoven the stories of over 25 men and women of note who contributed to the horticultural history of Van Diemen’s Land, delving into early books, letters, diaries and other rare manuscripts to bring them to life.
- Ron Radford, John Glover: Patterdale Farm and the revelation of the Australian landscape (Ovata Press)
Ron Radford addresses and examines Glover’s paintings and farming at his Patterdale estate in northern Tasmania. He also records the recent saving of Glover’s 200-year-old Patterdale farmhouse and the re-creation of his studio and garden. Dr Radford stresses that Glover created Australia’s first great landscape canvases, many poignantly depicting the original Palawa inhabitants.
- Henry Reynolds & Nicholas Clements, Tongerlongeter: First Nations leader and Tasmanian war hero (NewSouth)
Tongerlongeter is an epic story of resistance, sorrow and survival. Leader of the Oyster Bay nation of south-east Tasmania in the 1820s and ’30s. Tongerlongeterand his allies prosecuted the most effective frontier resistance ever mounted on Australian soil.
The Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History is a prestigious biennial literary prize established in 2016.
It commemorates the important contributions of Dick and Joan Green to Tasmanian culture and history. The award recognises high-quality published work that makes a significant contribution to an understanding of Tasmania’s past, and seeks to celebrate and promote books on Tasmanian history and cultural heritage, including historical fiction based on research.
The prize of $25,000 makes the Green Family Award for Tasmanian History one of Australia's premier awards for historical research and writing.
The University of Tasmania is proud to partner with the Green family on the award, continuing its commitment to fostering excellence in Tasmanian historical scholarship.
The winner will be announced in August. For more information, see the award website.
Banner image: (Book covers from left) Ann Cripps' Gardeners, Plant Collectors, Friends: Hobart Town and beyond; Ron Radford's John Glover: Patterdale Farm and the revelation of the Australian landscape; Robbie Arnott's Limberlost; Henry Reynolds & Nicholas Clements' Tongerlongeter: First Nations leader and Tasmanian war hero