“The longlisted writers get nothing,” Keneally said. “I’m very anxious to depict the craft of writing as an industrial thing and as a measurable industrial thing that brings in various economic goods for Australia. I’ve always felt that many ministers of the arts don’t get that.”
He said those politicians often regarded support for writers as a “lefty indulgence”,whereas the literature industry supported 20,000 people,and writers generated international kudos for Australia,income from overseas,and jobs.
For the second year running,Katrina Nannestad won the $30,000 prize for children or young-adult fiction,this time forRabbit,Soldier,Angel,Thief.
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The book is about a Russian boy adopted by soldiers during World War II and taken to Stalingrad and on to Berlin. It is the second part of a trilogy of war stories,with the third,Waiting for the Storks,due next month. She sets her stories in World War II because it was recent enough to feel relevant to today and said she liked to share lesser-known aspects of it.
“It’s exciting to tell somebody about a story that’s not well known.Waiting for the Storks is about a Polish girl kidnapped by the Germans to become a ‘little German girl’.”
She said there was a need to honour the real stories – “You can’t make light of a trauma” – but walked a tightrope as a children’s writer:“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever written.”