Winners of the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards have been announced. The big winner was Black and Blue by Veronica Gorrie winning both the prize for indigenous writing and the Victorian Prize for Literature, the most valuable literature prize in the country.
Black and Blue is "The story of an Aboriginal woman who worked as a police officer and fought for justice both within and beyond the Australian police force.
A proud Gunai/Kurnai woman, Veronica Gorrie grew up dauntless, full of cheek and a fierce sense of justice. After watching her friends and family suffer under a deeply compromised law-enforcement system, Gorrie signed up for training to become one of a rare few Aboriginal police officers in Australia. In her ten years in the force, she witnessed appalling institutional racism and sexism, and fought past those things to provide courageous and compassionate service to civilians in need, many Aboriginal themselves.
With a great gift for storytelling and a wicked sense of humour, Gorrie frankly and movingly explores the impact of racism on her family and her life, the impact of intergenerational trauma resulting from cultural dispossession, and the inevitable difficulties of making her way in the white- and male-dominated workplace of the police force.
Black and Blue is a memoir of remarkable fortitude and resilience, told with wit, wisdom, and great heart."
List of Winners
Victorian Prize for Literature and Prize for Indigenous Writing
Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience by Veronica Gorrie
Fiction
Smokehouse by Melissa Manning
Non-Fiction
The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar
Poetry
Trigger Warning by Maria Takolander
Writing for Young Adults
Girls in Boys’ Cars by Felicity Castagna
The publicly voted 2022 People’s Choice Award went to Rebecca Lim for Tiger Daughter
See the Full list of winners at Victorian Premier's Literary Awards
Robyn
Format
Books
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