Katherine Brabon has been named the winner of this year’s Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award for her novel, The Memory Artist.

The Memory Artist is the story of Pasha Ivanov, whose childhood apartment in Moscow was used for secret dissident meetings during the years of Brezhnev’s tyrannical rule over the Soviet Union. Years later, as a young man living in St Petersburg, the death of his mother triggers Pasha’s desire to create art and as he travels across Russia he retreats into his own memories and the country’s troubled past.

Award Judge and literary editor of The Australian Stephen Romei says, ‘Katherine Brabon’s intelligent, emotional, historically-acute Russia-themed novel is a stirring reminder that Australian literature can rise up to be anything it wants to be.’

Three writers were shortlisted alongside Brabon: Anna Daniels for Rocky Road, Gareth Dickson for A Minor Fifth, and Christopher Przewloka for Coffin’s Reach.

The Vogel is notable for launching the careers of several prominent Australian authors, such as Tim Winton, Kate Grenville and Gillian Mears, and as the winner, Brabon will receives $20,000 prize money and publication by Allen & Unwin.

The Memory Artist will be released this week.