The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt has won the A$60,000 (about US$39,670) 2023 Stella Prize, which celebrates Australian women's writing.
Concerning the winning title, a poetry collection about Holland-Batt's father's worsening Parkinson's Disease, chair of judges Alice Pung said, "In The Jaguar, Sarah Holland-Batt writes about death as tenderly as we've ever read about birth. She focuses on the pedestrian details of hospitals and aged care facilities, enabling us to see these institutions as distinct universes teeming with life and love. Her imagery is unexpected and unforgettable, and often blended with humour. This is a book that cuts through to the core of what it means to descend into frailty, old age, and death. It unflinchingly observes the complex emotions of caring for loved ones, contending with our own mortality and above all--continuing to live."
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The Writers' Trust of Canada has named six finalists for the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards for Emerging Writers, which is presented to a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who has been published in an independently edited literary magazine or anthology, but is unpublished in book form and without a book contract.
Winners in two categories, poetry and short fiction, will each receive C$10,000 (about US$7,340) at an event in Toronto on June 1. Finalists get C$2,500 (about US$1,835). This year's finalists can be found here.