The Davitt Awards recognise Australian women crime writers. See the Penguin Random House book that won this year.
We are delighted to share that Charlotte McConaghy’s Once There Were Wolves has been named Best Adult Novel at the 2022 Davitt Awards.
Join us in congratulating this wonderful book and author – it’s a well-deserved recognition!
About the Davitt Awards
The Davitt Awards were launched by Sisters in Crime Australia in 2001 to provide much-needed recognition to Australian women crime writers.
Since then, the awards have played a pivotal role in publishing and recognition of women writing in this genre. The 2022 Awards were presented this past Saturday, 27 August 2022, by journalist and true crime writer Louise Milligan at the awards’ first live ceremony since 2019.
Speaking on Charlotte’s win, the Davitt Awards judges described Once There Were Wolves as a ‘beautifully written book founded on the challenge of rewilding – the re-introduction of grey wolves to the remote Highlands of Scotland hundreds of years after they were hunted to extinction.’
Speaking to the crowd, the author shared that it ‘is, like many crime novels, about the darkest, cruellest sides of humanity. It’s about the harm we do not just to each other, but to the natural world and the wild creatures we share this planet with. It was therefore a challenging and sometimes heartbreaking book to write.’
‘But it is also, and ultimately, about the triumph of tenderness. It’s about love and compassion and generosity, it’s about our profound capacity to nurture. And, in rewilding not only landscapes but ourselves, too, it declares loudly and proudly that the wildest parts of ourselves, and particularly of women, to be the strongest, kindest, and most essential parts.’