Historian and author Clare Wright has been named the winner of the 2014 Stella Prize for her absorbing and vitallly important non-fiction book, The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.

Kerryn Goldsworthy, chair of the 2014 Stella Prize judging panel, says:

A rare combination of true scholarship with a warmly engaging narrative voice, along with a wealth of detail about individual characters and daily life on the goldfields, makes this book compulsively readable.

Wright received $50,000 in prize money and has announced she will be donating 10% of the winnings to be split between two organisations close to her heart: the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and Northcote High School to be held in trust to fund an annual academic award, the Eureka Prize for Women’s History.

The other five shortlisted authors – Hannah Kent (Burial Rites), Anna Krien (Night Games), Fiona McFarlane (The Night Guest), Kristina Olsson (Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir), Alexis Wright (The Swan Book) – will each receive $2,000, courtesy of the Nelson Meers Foundation.

Read more about the Stella Prize here.

To celebrate, we have the hardback edition of The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka available at the special price of $34.99 (). We’re also offering a free copy of My Brilliant Career & My Career Goes Bung by the prize’s namesake – one of Australia’s iconic female authors, Stella Maria Sarah ‘Miles’ Franklin – with every copy sold of The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.

This offer is available from any of our five Readings shops and online. Both offers are only available while stocks last.