Sixteen years ago, Nam Le’s debut won a major literary prize. His follow-up has done it again

Sixteen years ago, Nam Le’s debut won a major literary prize. His follow-up has done it again

“The difficulty is that what I like and look for in writing doesn’t remain fixed, so the (private) work just keeps going.”

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Other winners in this year’s NSW Literary Awards included Fiona McFarlane for her book Highway 13, which won The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000).

The Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40,000) went to James Bradley for Deep Water, a look at the oceans and the part they play in nature, history and climate.

Hasib Hourani’s rock flight by Giramondo Publishing has been awarded the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000) while Katrina Nannestad’s Silver Linings received the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000).

This year’s winners were selected from 733 entries, with the judges impressed by the “fearless integrity” of these Australian writers and their willingness to “engage with the beauty of violence of our world”.

The judges said Le’s poetry collection brought the writer’s signature intellectual rigour and political exploration of race and identity into the mix.

The work was best understood not as segmented, discrete poems but as one continuous poem.

“This collection is damning, frank, and unwavering in its exploration of diasporic identity and its implications both personal and political,” they said.

“Each piece offers a nuanced dance between past and present, capturing the complexities of identity, dislocation and the enduring bonds of family.”

Le said he didn’t set out to write 36 Ways, but “it kept insisting – even as I was writing other stuff – and I eventually realised it was the book I needed to write”.

“It’s a return to poetry, my first love and discipline, and it’s a return to first principles, which was what I needed,” he said.

“The book is very important to me. I had to fight to get it published. It captures and holds in tension what I feel about writing – my truths as a writer, I suppose you could say – and it calibrates all my work, both before and after. I feel freer knowing it’s out there.”

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