Indigenous writers rise to the top of the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards

A "whole new style of Aboriginal writing" is on the rise along with a growing Aboriginal readership, says Bruce Pascoe, whose ground-breaking history of pre-colonial agriculture, Dark Emu, was named book of the year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards on Monday night.

Pascoe, 68, also shared the new biennial $30,000 Indigenous Writer's Prize with Ellen van Neerven, 25, for Heat and Light – "a work of fiction by a born novelist," said the judges.

Author Bruce Pascoe, winner of the book of the year and co-winner of the Indigenous Writer's Prize in the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Credit: Lyn Harwood

"It's fantastic," Pascoe says, looking at the six shortlisted books of fiction, poetry, memoir and history. "We couldn't have had a shortlist like that 15 years ago. It's part of the evolution of the community; there are more people with a good education.

"Aboriginal people have always been storytellers, so it's a natural thing to do," he says of the decision to separate Indigenous writing from the Multicultural NSW Award, which went to Good Muslim Boy by Osamah Sami.

Author Merlinda Bobis, winner of the 2016 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. Credit: Evana Ho

In their praise of his book, the judges said: "Dark Emu reveals enormous Aboriginal achievement in governance and agriculture, and restores these to their rightful place at the epicentre of Australian history ... a voice at once catalysing and unifying, Bruce Pascoe is without peer in his field."

Pascoe, whose great-grandmother was Aboriginal, found references in diaries by Sir Thomas Mitchell and other explorers around the continent to vast cultivated fields of yams and grain fields, which were soon destroyed by settlers' sheep and cattle.

"They were so focused on creating a little England that anything Aboriginal was anathema," he says. "But the yam is 10 times as nutritious as the potato."

A former teacher who works to preserve Indigenous languages and stories, Pascoe grows grain and makes bread from indigenous grasses at his home near Mallacoota in remote north-east Victoria. He believes they can become commercially viable.

This year was the biggest and most successful festival in terms of attendances and box office.

Evidence from one grinding dish shows, "Aboriginal people were producing bread 34,000 years ago – that's 15,000 years before anyone else", he says.

His next books are a young-adult story about a horse, Mrs Whitlam, and a novel that suggests land war may not be natural to humans, based on Aboriginal culture.

Pascoe and his wife also run a B&B, and he says, "I make more money from cleaning toilets and vacuuming floors than writing".

Among other awards, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction went to Filipino-Australian novelist Merlinda Bobis for Locust Girl, a post-apocalyptic allegory about two girls living in a world without water – one of three shortlisted works on climate change.

Meet the winners at Sydney Writers' Festival, Thursday May 19 at 1.30pm, Sydney Dance 2, Walsh Bay.

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

• Kate Tempest, opening address, Tuesday, 6.30pm, Roslyn Packer Theatre
• Insiders Live, George Megalogenis, Niki Savva, Annabel Crabb et al, Wednesday, 3pm, Pier 2/3, Walsh Bay

2016 NSW PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD WINNERS

Book of the Year ($10,000)

Dark Emu Bruce Pascoe (Magabala Books)

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)

Locust Girl: A Lovesong Merlinda Bobis (Spinifex Press)

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000 – sponsored by UTS)

An Astronaut's Life Sonja Dechian (Text Publishing)

Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40,000)

Reckoning: A Memoir Magda Szubanski (Text Publishing)

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)

brush Joanne Burns (Giramondo)

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ($30,000)

Teacup Rebecca Young & Matt Ottley (Scholastic Australia)

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature ($30,000)

Laurinda Alice Pung (Black Inc.)

Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)

The Bleeding Tree Angus Cerini (Griffin Theatre Sydney)

Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)

Deadline Gallipoli, Episode 4: "The Letter" Cate Shortland (Matchbox Pictures)

Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)

Good Muslim Boy Osamah Sami (Hardie Grant Books)

Indigenous Writers Prize ($30,000)

JOINT WINNERS:

Dark Emu Bruce Pascoe (Magabala Books)

Heat and Light Ellen van Neerven (University of Queensland Press)

Special Award

Dr Rosie Scott AM, for her contribution to literature and social causes as a writer, mentor and activist.

People's Choice Award

The Life of Houses Lisa Gorton (Giramondo)