Source : Times of India
Vicki Laveau-Harvie won The Stella Prize 2019 for her book The Erratics.
The Stella Prize is a literary award in Australia that is only for women. The award is open to any book, both fiction and non-fiction, written by an Australian woman published in the past year. The books in contention for the 2019 prize must have been published between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2018.
The winner this year is Vicki Laveau-Harvie for her book The Erratics. The book is a memoir about how, when returning to her family after several years Vicki discovers her mother has been mentally unstable and has isolated her husband and herself and has been mistreating him.
The judge’s statement says the book, “elegantly tramples all over the Stella requirements: it is excellent, engaging and original in spades. It is moving and funny, and as powerful in what it leaves out as it is in what it includes.”
In another report, they described the book as, “A gripping memoir, Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s The Erratics mines the psychological damage wrought on a nuclear family by a monstrous personality, set against the bitter cold of a Canadian winter. ”
Vicki Laveau-Harvie was awarded $50,000, sponsored this year by National Australia Bank. The prize was awarded on 9th April 2019 at Arts Centre Melbourne.
She expressed her joy on winning and added in her speech that, “The generosity of this prize is going to allow me to make my time count, to travel for the research I need to do for the next book I hope to write.”
