Laura Jean McKay wins Victorian Premier’s Literary Award

A contagious virus is the disruptor in Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country, winner of Australia’s richest prize for writers.

Author Laura Jean McKay, winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature.

A contagious virus is the disruptor in Laura Jean McKay’s novel The Animals in That Country, but unlike COVID-19 this one has a surprising side effect: people who contract it are able to understand what animals say and think.

McKay’s novel has won the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature and the $25,000 fiction prize in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, announced on Monday.

“People rely on language; we believe it makes us superior to other species,” McKay said. “I wondered what would happen if that barrier was taken away.”

It took years for McKay to work out an appropriate language for animals, and the award judges praised her daring and original ­approach, particularly the “stop-start poetry” of animal speech.

The author from Melbourne, now based in New Zealand where she teaches creative writing, edged out prominent authors in the fiction shortlist, including Richard Flanagan, Gail Jones and Vivian Pham.

Melbourne author Andre Dao has won the award for an unpublished manuscript in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Picture: David Geraghty

The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were announced by Creative Industries Minister Danny Pearson in an online ceremony. Other winners, who receive $25,000, are Paddy Manning for Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing Us; Angus Cerini for his play Wonnangatta; David Stavanger for his poetry collection Case Notes; Cath Moore for her novel for young adults, Metal Fish, Falling Snow; and Archie Roach for his memoir Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music.

Journalist Louise Milligan won the $2000 people’s choice award for Witness: An Investigation into the Brutal Cost of Seeking Justice.

Melbourne postgraduate law student Andre Dao won $15,000 for Anam, a fictionalised account of his Vietnamese family’s history. The award is for an unpublished manuscript, and past winners have included Graham Simsion (The Rosie Project) and Jane Harper (The Dry) before they achieved popular success.