2022 Penguin Literary Prize shortlist announced

Penguin Random House Australia is thrilled to reveal the shortlist for the 2022 Penguin Literary Prize.

The shortlisted titles are:

• On a Bright Hillside in Paradise by Annette Higgs is about a family of convict descendants in Tasmania and the changes wrought when Christian Brethren evangelists arrive to hold revival meetings in local barns.
• Full of anger, Helen Hope by Katelin Farnsworth is a story about learning to trust and finding your place in the world again after a traumatic event.
• White Over Blue by Christina Gee is ostensibly a book about trying to write a novel, but unpacks so many other things along the way.
• Ultramotherland by Andrei Seleznev is speculative, funny, a thriller and takes you on a ride as it explores post-Soviet identity, alienation, and the search for meaning and belonging.
• The Fall Between by Darcy-Lee Tindale is a crime thriller exploring the tensions between urban and rural life.
• Totem by Annelise Roberts charts a strange kind of correspondence between a nuclear veteran and his unnamed descendant as they struggle to find answers – when did this bleakness start, and where does it end?

Publishing Director of PRH Australia, Justin Ractliffe, extends his congratulations to the shortlisted authors. 

'It’s a huge achievement to get down to just six after the hundreds of submissions we received for this year’s prize,' he said.

'We have a brilliant panel of judges who, like me, are very much looking forward to hunkering down to read and discuss the shortlist. It’s always a thrill to discover new writers and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what 2022’s Penguin Literary Prize has in store for us.’

The winner will be announced by Penguin Random House Australia on Wednesday 15 June 2022.

The PRH Literary Prize, launched in 2017, was established to find, nurture and develop new Australian authors of literary fiction.

Previous winners include Hitch by Kathryn Hind, published June 2019 and awarded the Betty Trask Award in 2020, The Spill by Imbi Neeme, published June 2020 with rights sold in Germany and Estonia, The Rabbits by Sophie Overett, published July 2021 with rights sold in the UK and Denizen by James McKenzie Watson, to be published in July 2022.