Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (published in the U.S. by Catapult) has won the A$60,000 (about US$39,000) 2025 Stella Prize, which honors "the most excellent, original and outstanding book written by an Australian woman or non-binary writer."
Organizers wrote about Theory & Practice, the author's seventh novel: "It's 1986, and 'beautiful, radical ideas' are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students--and Kit. He claims to be in a 'deconstructed' relationship, and they become lovers. Meanwhile, her work on the Woolfmother falls into disarray.
"Theory & Practice is a mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame. It makes and unmakes fiction as we read, expanding our notion of what a novel can contain."
Judges added: "In her refusal to write a novel that reads like a novel, de Kretser instead gifts her reader a sharp examination of the complex pleasures and costs of living."