Australian author Charlotte Wood longlisted for Booker Prize
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Loading... - Richard Moore
- 08 Aug 2024
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Australian author Charlotte Wood has been longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize with her seventh novel, Stone Yard Devotional. This marks the first time in eight years that an Australian author has been longlisted for the prestigious award, the last being JM Coetzee for The Schooldays of Jesus.
The Booker Prize judges, including novelists Yiyun Li and Sara Collins, praised Wood's novel, describing it as a work that both "thrilled and chilled the judges," and expressed excitement about sharing it with readers.
Stone Yard Devotional explores the journey of a middle-aged woman who retreats to a monastery in rural New South Wales, where she begins to confront and process layers of repressed grief. The novel, released in Australia last year, garnered widespread acclaim, with The Guardian calling it "a powerful, generous book" and the ABC describing it as "a quiet, contemplative novel."
Wood is one of Australia's most acclaimed writers, having won numerous awards, including the NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Stella Prize for her 2015 novel The Natural Way of Things. Her works have also been finalists for major awards like the Miles Franklin Award and the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Fiction.
In a poignant chapter of her life, Wood was diagnosed with breast cancer around the time she completed Stone Yard Devotional. In interviews, she revealed that her two sisters were also diagnosed with the disease at the same time, leading to deep reflections on mortality.
Wood’s previous novel, The Weekend, was adapted for the stage last year. Besides her literary achievements, she is also known for her passion for cooking, which she chronicled in her 2012 book Love & Hunger.
