Anna McGahan wins 2023 The Australian/Vogel’s prize for her first novel Immaculate

You may think you know her face from somewhere, and probably you do. Anna McGahan, winner of this year’s The Australian/Vogel’s prize, has literary pedigree.

Anna McGahan, 35, is the winner of The Australian/Vogel prize for a young writer. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Anna McGahan has won The Australian/ Vogel’s prize for a young writer, and perhaps you’re thinking: wait, don’t I know that name?

And maybe you do.

McGahan, who has just turned 35 but was 34 when entries closed (the prize is for young writers, defined as those under the age of 35) is a well-regarded actor, whose credits include Underbelly: Razor, House Husbands, and The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

Perhaps you’re thinking: no, that’s not it, I know her name not from the screen, but in relation to the Vogel prize, in which case, you are again correct: she is Andrew McGahan’s niece.

Andrew McGahan won the Vogel in 1991 for the grunge-lit novel, Praise. He died from pancreatic cancer, aged 52, in 2019. They were close. It’s fair to say he helped inspire her to literature. She has wanted to follow in his footsteps, and win this thing since she was seven.

Her entry – now her book – is called Immaculate.

Anna McGahan is Andrew McGahan's niece. He won the Vogel in 1991 for the grunge-lit Praise

Anna McGahan's Immaculate has won the 2023 The Australian/Vogel prize

The Vogel prize is Australia’s oldest and most prestigious award for young writers. It is sponsored by The Australian, the family behind the Vogel’s bread company and publishers, Allen & Unwin. It has been remarkably successful, in uncovering brilliant new talent. Tim Winton won the Vogel with his first book, An Open Swimmer, when he was just 21. Kate Grenville won with her first book, Lilian’s Story, and on it goes.

There is no prize quite like it: the winner sees their manuscript published as a book by Allen & Unwin on the day of the announcement. Anna McGahan’s entry, Immaculate, will be available in bookshops and online, from Monday.

As a judge, I can tell you that it’s a wonderful book. The setting is brilliant: Pentecostal Christianity in modern-day Brisbane. The language is urgent. The stakes are high: a child is dying and only one parent believes that she might be cured by prayer.

The judges – Hsu-Ming Teo, Kate Adams and myself, as literary editor of this masthead – selected Anna McGahan’s entry from a larger-than-usual pile, which will be larger again in 2024.

The Australian decided this year to relaunch the Vogel, under the catchline: “Do you want a book deal?”

We know that talented young writers have had their attention diverted by podcasts, screenplays, Netflix treatments and Instagram stories. We wanted to draw them back, refocus their attention on the form that still matters: the novel.

In an interview, McGahan said she wasn’t allowed to read her uncle Andrew’s book, about sex and heroin, until she was in her teens.

“I knew he had written something quite brilliant by unashamedly being himself, and I was inspired by that,” she said. Over time, she came to understand that “you can get away with telling some ugly truths if you tell the story beautifully enough.”

McGahan was raised in Brisbane, Queensland and attended Brisbane Girls Grammar School. She studied psychology, then Fine Arts Acting at QUT in Brisbane, and film and television at AFTRS in Sydney.

Her novel draws on her experience of leaving a Pentecostal church as a single mother.

“This book is certainly not about me or my separation, but some of my story is relevant in terms of explaining what this book is trying to do,” she says. McGahan entered the church when she was 23 and searching for greater meaning. She stayed in for 10 years.

McGahan’s promise has been recognised by many others: she was short-listed for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award in 2010, for her play He’s Seeing Other People Now. In 2018, she wrote a feminist memoir of her spiritual conversion, which also won a prize.

McGahan lives in Brisbane with her young daughters, who were jumping around in the background during our interview. “They weren’t supposed to be here, but that’s how it’s turned out, and I figured out a while ago that if you’re going to be a mother of small children and a writer, you are going to have to write with a child pulling on some part of your clothing,” she laughs.

Anna McGahan’s debut novel, the Vogel-prize winning Immaculate (Allen & Unwin) is out now. Read the full interview in Review.