Pan Macmillan Australia takes home two awards at the 2022 ABIAs
The night of nights in the book industry has concluded for 2022, and we are proud to have two winners at this year’s ABIAs.
First off, Devotion by Hannah Kent won the Audiobook of the Year Award. Narrated by Emily Wheaton, this is an incredible achievement and a great recognition for our Macmillan Australia Audio team. Already named Booktopia’s Favourite Australian Book in 2021, Devotion was also shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards for Fiction, and the ABIA Literary Book of the Year.
We’re also thrilled that The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar was awarded the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year. This adds to the growing tally of awards for The Mother Wound, and an extensive number of nominations for other awards!
Congratulations to our authors and teams who worked so hard on these books and have been recognised by the industry. Check out the other winners and the recorded stream here.
About the Books
The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar
‘A magnificent and devastating work of art. There is a raging anger here, and a deep sorrow, but at the core Haydar gives us truths about love. This is one of the most important books I’ve ever read.’ Bri Lee
‘I am from a family of strong women.’
Amani Haydar suffered the unimaginable when she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father. Five months pregnant at the time, her own perception of how she wanted to mother (and how she had been mothered) was shaped by this devastating murder.
After her mother’s death, Amani began reassessing everything she knew of her parents’ relationship. They had been unhappy for so long – should she have known that it would end like this? A lawyer by profession, she also saw the holes in the justice system for addressing and combating emotional abuse and coercive control.
Amani also had to reckon with the weight of familial and cultural context. Her parents were brought together in an arranged marriage, her mother thirteen years her father’s junior. Her grandmother was brutally killed in the 2006 war in Lebanon, adding complex layers of intergenerational trauma.
Writing with grace and beauty, Amani has drawn from this a story of female resilience and the role of motherhood in the home and in the world. In The Mother Wound, she uses her own strength to help other survivors find their voices.
WINNER OF THE 2021 SYDNEY MUSIC, ARTS & CULTURE (SMAC) AWARDS
WINNER OF THE VICTORIAN PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ABIA BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MATT RICHELL AWARD FOR NEW WRITER OF THE YEAR 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NSW PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS THE DOUGLAS STEWART PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NSW PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS THE MULTICULTURAL NSW AWARD 2022
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALKLEY BOOK AWARD 2021
Devotion by Hannah Kent
BOOKTOPIA’S FAVOURITE BOOK OF 2021
Prussia, 1836
Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature – she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity . . . until she meets Thea.
Ocean, 1838
The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God’s law and at odds with their King’s order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne’s heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break.
The whale passed. The music faded.
South Australia, 1838
A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible . . . is devotion.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDIE BOOK AWARDS FICTION 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ABIA LITERARY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
LONGLISTED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK DESIGN AWARDS 2022 BEST DESIGNED LITERARY FICTION COVER