Clare Wright has won The Douglas Stewart and Book of the Year prizes, for her book Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy (Text Publishing) at the NSW Literary Awards!

According to ABC News: “Wright’s book Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions is a richly detailed account of how the bark petitions came to be and their cultural and political impact. It just won Book of the Year at the NSW Literary Awards. It also won the $40,000 Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, taking Wright’s winnings at the event, held at the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, to $50,000.”

Judges for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, said of Wright’s book; “Näku Dhäruk also stood out for its genre-fusion storytelling, blending history with novelistic creative nonfiction, autoethnographic memoir and biography, and poetic reflections of life on Country while illuminating the workings of the Australian political process over time, leading up to, and in the wake of, the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum. It is a complex literary work that is destined to become a classic Australian text.”

Huge congratulations, Clare!

And, here are a collection of write-ups about Wright’s huge win;

— The Age: The history book running out of room for awards stickers has won again
— ABC News: Clare Wright wins top prize at NSW Literary Awards for ‘powerful’ history book Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions
— Guardian Australia: ‘A book that should be read by all Australians’: Clare Wright wins book of the year at the NSW Literary awards
— Australian Financial Reviews: Story of land rights origins has a $150m lesson for today