Stella Prize Winner, 2014.
Congratulations to Clare Wright, the author of The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, winner of the Stella Prize, 2014.
The Stella Prize is a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing.
The prize is named after one of Australia’s iconic female authors, Stella Maria ‘Miles’ Franklin, and was awarded for the first time in 2013. Both nonfiction and fiction books by Australian women are eligible for entry.
The Eureka Stockade. The story is one of Australia’s foundation legends, but until now it has been told as though only half the participants were there.
What if the hot-tempered, free-wheeling gold miners we learnt about in school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? And what if there were women and children inside the Eureka Stockade, defending their rights while defending themselves against a barrage of bullets?
As Clare Wright reveals, there were thousands of women on the goldfields and many of them were active in pivotal roles. The stories of how they arrived there, why they came and how they sustained themselves make for fascinating reading in their own right. But it is in the rebellion itself that the unbiddable women of Ballarat come into their own.
Groundbreaking, absorbing, crucially important—The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka is the uncut story of the day the Australian people found their voice.
Clare Wright is an historian who has worked as a political speechwriter, university lecturer, historical consultant, and radio and television broadcaster. Her first book, Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia’s Female Publicans, garnered both critical and popular acclaim. The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, her second book, took her ten years to research and write. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and three children.
The shortlist 2014:
Night Games: Sex power and sport by Anna Krien
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
Boy Lost by Kristina Olsson
The Swan Book by Alexis Wright
The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
Boy Lost by Kristina Olsson
The Swan Book by Alexis Wright
The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright
Read more about the shortlist here.
