Dramatists S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack have been awarded the Prize for Drama in the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for The Jungle and the Sea, which the judges described as a “a rich and essential work of contemporary theatre”.

The Jungle and the Sea, Belvoir, 2022. Photo © Sriram Jeyaraman

Poet Grace Yee has been awarded the Victorian Prize for Literature for her debut poetry collection, Chinese Fish. At $100,000, the Victorian Prize for Literature is Australia’s richest literary prize. In addition, Yee was also honoured with the $25,000 Award for Poetry.

The Victorian Prize for Literature was last awarded to a work of poetry in 2014 for Liquid Nitrogen by Jennifer Maiden.

Other winning works at this year’s Awards included the graphic novel Ghost Book by Brisbane-based author and illustrator Remy Lai, which won the Prize for Children’s Literature. Last awarded in 1995, the Children’s Literature category was re-introduced in 2024 to honour works written for children up to age 12.

Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning author Melissa Lucashenko was awarded the Prize for Fiction for her novel Edenglassie.

The Prize for Non-Fiction was awarded to Ellen van Neerven for...