Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists 2016
Congratulations to Abigail Ulman and Murray Middleton, who have each been named this year’s Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists for their debut short-story collections. Here’s a snapshot of both the winning books.
When There’s Nowhere Else to Run by Murray Middleton
The characters in these stories are all seeking refuge, from the wheat belt of Western Australia to the limestone desert of South Australia. But they all discover that, no matter how many thousands of kilometres they put between themselves and their transgressions, sometimes there’s nowhere else to run.
What the judges say: Middleton’s writing is deliciously lean and exquisitely polished. He herds the reader across the unfolding landscape of contemporary Australia without sentimentality or cliche, and looks for the poignant depths, uncertainties and yearnings beneath the unpolished surface of ordinary Australian life.
Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman
This collection of stories is about young women of different ages, from their early teens to their late twenties, coming to terms with what it means to desire, and be desired, with funny, surprising and sometimes confronting results.
What the judges say: Ulman has a talent for voice, situation and characterisation in stories that are erotic (sometimes ‘transgressive’), international and urban. Each piece of ordinary realism teeters delicately on the edge of the dangerous, extraordinary, or surreal. Ulman manipulates the reader into extraordinary emotional investments, with the maturity and confidence of a writer beyond her years.
