Arabic version: لينورا ثاكر تفوز بالجائزة الكبرى لجوائز كوينزلاند الأدبية

According to The Guardian, Meriam and Wagedagam author Lenora Thaker has won the $30,000 Queensland premier’s award for a work of state significance for her debut historical novel, The Pearl of Tagai Town. The Queensland literary awards judges called the book “accessible and deeply enjoyable” and praised its vivid sense of place.

The novel draws on Thaker’s family history in Cairns-Malay Town, an unmapped shantytown that existed from the late 1800s until the late 1950s. The settlement housed Indigenous Australians and Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Malaysian and Sri Lankan residents who had been segregated from the white population.

In a joint statement, the judges said warm, richly drawn characters and an innovative integration of Ailan languages created a rich, cohesive work that brought new insight and imaginative life to a far north Queensland community. They described The Pearl of Tagai Town as a “stunning debut novel” and “unambiguously and distinctively Queensland”.

The winners were announced on Thursday night at Brisbane Powerhouse as part of Brisbane writers festival. Claire Thomas won the $15,000 fiction award for On Not Climbing Mountains, while Micaela Sahhar received the $15,000 nonfiction prize for Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family.

Zeno Sworder won the $15,000 children’s book award for Once I Was a Giant; Julianne Negri took the young adult award for The Belly of a Wolf; Helena Pantsis won the short story category for Mother Salad; and Eunice Andrada received the $17,500 poetry award for Kontra. Sita Walker’s debut, In a Common Hour, won the $15,000 people’s choice award.