OBSERVER: Stella Shortlist
For the first time in history, all writers on the 2025 Stella Prize shortlist are women of colour.
The six works chosen for the shortlist by the Stella judges are described as “conspicuous for their integrity, compassion and fearlessness”.
Miles Franklin winner Michelle de Kretser’s Theory and Practice, a meld of fiction and memory allowing for “formlessness and mess”, deliberates the joys and tragedies of existence.
Santilla Chingaipe’s Black Convicts traces the remarkable story of convicts of African descent on the First Fleet.
Chingaipe interrogates Australia’s dark past of absences, erasures, and our involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
Samah Sabawi’s Cactus Pear for My Beloved is a sweeping family saga covering 100 years of history.
From British-ruled Palestine to Redland Bay, Queensland, the work is powerful for its optimism while focusing an unwavering lens on the intergenerational impact of displacement and genocide.
In Jumaana Abdu’s debut novel, Translations, Aliya and her young daughter Sakina move to a small town in rural New South Wales.
Abdu probes the conflicts between faith and community, trauma and loneliness, and what it means to establish a new life as a migrant on stolen land.
Melanie Cheng’s The Burrow is a psychological study of a family suffering unmentionable grief.
Set during the Covid lockdown, the arrival of a pet rabbit forces the family to face long-held secrets.
Journalist Amy McQuire’s Black Witness offers a powerful critique of casual racism in Australian mainstream media.
Highlighting significant recent events, such as the Palm Island rebellion and the Bowraville killings, McQuire exposes the privilege of ‘White Witness’, exposing the unfairness and bias operating against First Nations people in contemporary media.
Each of the shortlisted writers takes home $4000 and the chance for the ultimate prize of $60,000 to be announced on May 23.
stella.org.au
Kathryn Keeble