Prime Minister’s Literary awards 2025: Michelle de Kretser wins $80,000 for Theory & Practice
Image Source : theguardian.com
The author used her acceptance speech to call out the Australian government’s response to the war in Gaza, in a ceremony marked by political commentary
When Michelle de Kretser decided to use her acceptance of the Stella prize in May to speak out about Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the Australian government’s role in the ongoing humanitarian crisis, she admitted the speech might be a “career ender”.
It wasn’t: on Monday, De Kretser collected the $80,000 Prime Minister’s Literary award for fiction for the same book, her eighth novel, Theory & Practice.
As the title suggests, the work tackles the relationship between intent and actions, while masterfully testing readers’ assumptions about autobiography and fiction. Judges praised the novel as “elegant, playful and razor sharp”.
In her acceptance speech on Monday evening in Canberra, De Kretser again made a powerful comment to the government.
“In his superb book Rock Flight, Hasib Hourani writes, ‘a rock is not a rock until it’s thrown’ – but we mustn’t throw rocks, in case they hit the guilty and upset the special envoy for the guilty,” she told the crowd.
“So I have this piece of paper instead. And tomorrow at my desk I’ll scrunch it up, as Hasib advises. May the genocide guide my aim when I throw. Free Palestine.”
Theory & Practice, set in 1980s Melbourne, follows a female student undertaking a thesis on Virginia Woolf, navigating Bohemian life, radical politics and academic obsession. It’s a work that interrogates the dissonance between ideals and actions, a theme De Kretser believes resonates sharply in today’s political climate.
“There’s always been a gap between what we say and what we do,” the author told the Guardian a few days before Monday’s award was announced.
“But the current crisis in Gaza has made that gap horrific. The genocide has exposed the emptiness of western assurances about international law and humanitarian values. No one believes in those any more.”
De Kretser’s Stella prize speech earlier this year was a bold condemnation of institutional silence. “I haven’t faced direct backlash,” she said, of the aftermath. “But I’m sure I’m persona non grata in certain WhatsApp groups. My name is mud there. The good fortune is, I don’t have an employer – no one can fire me.”
Despite the risks, De Kretser urged emerging writers to speak truthfully. “Art is about truth. Your work will be more powerful if you speak truthfully. But I understand fear. People have families to protect, and jobs.
“Still, I need to ask myself, in 10 years from now, will I be at peace with what I did or didn’t say? I know I won’t still be thinking about a literary award.”
