Devotion by Hannah Kent shortlisted for the 2022 Booksellers’ Choice Book of the Year Awards
We are proud to announce that Devotion by Hannah Kent has been shortlisted for the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) 2022 Booksellers’ Choice Book of the Year Awards.
These awards recognise the Australian books that booksellers most enjoyed reading and handselling during 2021. We believe this is a special award because it is decided by the people who personally care enough to put a book in the hands of the reading public.
Devotion was nominated for the adult fiction category, one of six books nominated and a testament to the strength of Hannah Kent’s writing, loved nationwide by booksellers. Devotion was also named Booktopia’s Favourite Book of 2021, shortlisted for the 2022 Indie Book Awards, and longlisted for the 2022 ABIA and ABDA Awards.
The winners in each category will be announced at the ABA Gala Dinner and Awards Night on Sunday, 12 June, alongside the ABDA Awards. You can read more about the ABA Awards here.
About the book
Devotion by Hannah Kent
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.
About the author
Hannah Kent’s first novel, the international bestseller, Burial Rites (2013), was translated into over 30 languages and won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, the ABA Nielsen Bookdata Bookseller’s Choice Award, the Victorian Premier’s People’s Choice Award and the FAW Christina Stead Award. It is currently being adapted for film by Sony TriStar. Hannah’s second novel, The Good People (2016), was also translated into many languages and is currently being adapted for film by Aquarius Productions.