The National Biography Award, established in Australia in 1996, is awarded for the best published work of biographical or autobiographical writing by an Australian. It aims "to encourage the highest standards of writing biography and autobiography and to promote public interest in those genres". It was initially awarded every two years, but from 2002 it has been awarded annually. Its administration was taken over by the State Library of New South Wales in 1998.
History of the Award
It was originally endowed by private benefactor, Dr. Geoffrey Cains, and the original prize money was $12,500. In 2002, Cains said of endowing the award that "I wanted to give back to literature something, it had given me so much; besides, philanthropy in this country is so overlooked and diminished". In 2005, the prize money was increased to $20,000 with the support of Michael Crouch. Belinda Hutchinson, former President of the Library Council of NSW, expressed gratitude for this increase to "an award that celebrates the Australian psyche through distinguished biography writing."
In 2012 the prize money for the Award has been increased to $25,000. Since 2013, each shortlisted author receives $1,000. The judging panel varies from year to year. In 2018 the Michael Crouch Award was introduced for an Australian writer's first published biography.
The shortlist is announced in early July each year, followed by the winner announcement in early August.
Winners
2023: Ann-Marie Priest for My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood
2022: Bernadette Brennan for Leaping into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears 2021: Cassandra Pybus for Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse 2020: Patrick Mullins for Tiberius with a Telephone: The Life and Stories of William McMahon 2019: Behrouz Boochani for No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison 2018: Judith Brett for The Enigmatic Mr Deakin 2017: Tom D C Roberts for Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty 2016: Brenda Niall for Mannix 2015: Philip Butterss for An Unsentimental Bloke: The Life and Work of C J Dennis 2014: Alison Alexander for The Ambitions of Jane Franklin: Victorian Lady Adventurer 2013: Peter Fitzpatrick for The Two Frank Thrings 2012: Martin Thomas for The Many Worlds of R. H. Mathews: In Search of an Australian Anthropologist 2011: Alasdair McGregor for Grand Obsessions: The Life and Work of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin 2010: Brian Matthews for Manning Clark: A Life 2009: Ann Blainey for I am Melba 2008: Joint winners Philip Dwyer for Napoleon, 1769-1799: The Path to Power Graham Seal for These Few Lines: A Convict Story – The Lost Lives of Myra and William Sykes 2007: Jacob Rosenberg for East of Time 2006: John Hughes for The Idea of Home 2005: Robert Hillman for The Boy in the Green Suit 2004: Barry Hill for Broken Song: T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession 2003: Joint winners Peter Rose for Rose Boys Don Watson for Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : a Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002: Jacqueline Kent for A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, a Literary Life 2000: Joint winners Peter Robb for M, a biography of European painter Caravaggio Mandy Sayer for Dreamtime Alice: a Memoir 1998: Roberta Sykes for Snake Cradle 1996: Abraham Biderman for The World of My Past