A story about the hidden tensions in one of Australia’s establishment families and another about a group of women kidnapped and imprisoned on a broken down property are the joint fiction winners of the prime minister’s literary awards.

In the fiction category, two novels, The Life of Houses by Lisa Gorton and The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood shared the prize.

Fiction was one of three categories to be split.

Two non-fiction entries were also recognised – On Stalin’s Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics by Sheila Fitzpatrick and Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather by Karen Lamb.

In the Australian history category, the prize was split between The Story of Australia’s People by Geoffrey Blainey and Sam Lipski and Suzanne D Rutland’s Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and the Soviet Jews 1959-89.

In poetry, Sarah Holland-Batt was recognised for her work The Hazards. Sally Morgan won the children’s category for Sister Heart and, in the young adult category, Meg McKinlay’s A Single Stone took the prize.

Winners in each category receive $80,000 with prizemoney divided among joint recipients and shortlisted authors receiving $5,000 each.



Announcing the winners at the National Library of Australia on Tuesday night, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said winning and shortlisted authors had continued Australia’s rich literary tradition.

The winning entries were selected from a shortlist of 30 books from 425 entries across each of the categories by a panel of experts with Turnbull making the final decision.

It is not the first time the prize for fiction has been shared among two recipients. In 2014, the then prime minister, Tony Abbott, sparked controversy after stepping in at the last minute to add Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North as a winner. Judges had nominated Steven Carroll for A World of Other People.

Poet and judging panel member Les Murray criticised the intervention as “nasty”, despite the award rules clearly stating that the “prime minister will make the final decision on the awarding of the awards, taking into account the recommendations of the judges.”

• Australian Associated Press contribued to this report