SYDNEY—A 30-year-old Vietnamese immigrant has added the prestigious fiction prize of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards to his already impressive list of accolades.
Melbourne resident Nam Le's book of short stories, titled The Boat, was among the prize-winners revealed at ceremony in Sydney on Monday.
In announcing Nam's $100,000 fiction prize, federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett said his work was evidence of the depth of young writing talent in Australia.
"Here we have a young writer with such great promise and he gets the recognition he so justly deserves," he said.
"Australian literary culture is alive, healthy and well."
Le, born in Vietnam and raised in Australia, has now won 11 literary prizes since 2007, including the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Book of the Year and the Dylan Thomas Prize.
The Boat features stories written from diverse perspectives, including that of a young American woman visiting Tehran and an Australian teenager dealing with love and the impending death of his mother.
It includes two stories set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
The $100,000 prize money for the non-fiction category of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards was won by three authors - Evelyn Juers for House of Exile: The Life and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann; and Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, who co-authored Drawing the Global Colour Line.
Reynolds said he had not expected to win the prize and only decided to attend the ceremony at the last minute.
The prize winners were picked from a shortlist that also included writers Geraldine Brooks, Peter Goldsworthy and David Marr.
Le, who was unable to attend the award ceremony, said he was surprised to be shortlisted with writers he admired.
"I feel like a thief in a row of murderers," Le said, in a statement read by his publisher.
