Seven Pan Macmillan Books nominated for the 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards
The Book Awards longlist for the 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) has been announced, with SEVEN Pan Macmillan books nominated across seven categories.
This is an incredible achievement and we couldn’t be prouder of our incredible authors and their books!
Voted for by the ABIA Academy – a group of more than 250 publishers, booksellers, agents, media and industry representatives – the books selected were published in the previous calendar year. A shortlist will be released on Monday 23 May, with the winners announced at the publishing industry’s Awards night of nights on Thursday, 9 June. The red carpet ABIAs Ceremony will be held at the International Convention Centre (ICC) Sydney.
Biography Book of the Year & The Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year
The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar
‘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
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALKLEY BOOK AWARD 2021
Book of the Year for Younger Children (ages 7-12)
Exit Through the Gift Shop by Maryam Master
Anahita Rosalind Ghorban-Galaszczuk (yes, that really is her name but you can call her Ana) is discovering that life is absurd. As if dying of cancer at the age of 12.5 isn’t bad enough, she still has to endure daily insults from her nemesis, Alyssa (Queen Mean) Anderson.
Ana’s on a wild roller-coaster of life and death, kindness and cruelty, ordinary and extraordinary.
And she’s got a few things to do before she exits . . .
LONGLISTED FOR THE CBCA BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR YOUNGER READERS 2022
LONGLISTED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK DESIGN AWARDS 2022 BEST DESIGNED CHILDREN’S FICTION BOOK
General Fiction Book of the Year
The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth
The moment she laid eyes on Heather Wisher, Tully knew this woman was going to destroy their lives.
Tully and Rachel are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn’t even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win Tully and Rachel over, while carrying the burden of the secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, they are all hiding something.
The announcement of Stephen and Heather’s engagement threatens to set off a family implosion, with old wounds and dark secrets finally being forced to the surface.
A garage full of stolen goods. An old hot-water bottle, stuffed with cash. A blood-soaked wedding. And that’s only the beginning . . .
LONGLISTED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK DESIGN AWARDS 2022 BEST DESIGNED COMMERCIAL FICTION COVER
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
From the outside, the Delaneys appear to be an enviably contented family. Even after all these years, former tennis coaches Joy and Stan are still winning tournaments, and now that they’ve sold the family business they have all the time in the world to learn how to ‘relax’. Their four adult children are busy living their own lives, and while it could be argued they never quite achieved their destinies, no-one ever says that out loud.
But now Joy Delaney has disappeared and her children are re-examining their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh, frightened eyes. Is her disappearance related to their mysterious house guest from last year? Or were things never as rosy as they seemed in the Delaney household?
General Non-fiction Book of the Year
Heartsick by Jessie Stephens
‘Thought-provoking, highly original and beautifully nuanced. Jessie Stephens’ journalistic skill shines as she weaves together true stories with a narrative as compelling as any novel.’ Jane Harper
‘Heartbreak does not seem to be a brand of grief we respect. And so we are left in the middle of the ocean, floating in a dinghy with no anchor, while the world waits for us to be okay again.’
Claire has returned from London to the dust and familiarity of her childhood home, only to realise something is wrong with her partner Maggie.
Patrick is a lonely uni student, until he meets Caitlin – but does she feel as connected as he does?
Ana is happily married with three children. Then, one night, she falls in love with someone else.
Based on three true stories, Heartsick is a compelling narrative nonfiction account of the many lows and occasional surprising highs of heartbreak. Bruising, beautiful, achingly specific but wholeheartedly universal, it reminds us that emotional pain can make us as it breaks us, and that storytelling has the ultimate healing power.
International Book of the Year
The Magician by Colm Tóibín
When the Great War breaks out in 1914 Thomas Mann, like so many of his fellow countrymen, is fired up with patriotism. He imagines the Germany of great literature and music, which had drawn him away from the stifling, conservative town of his childhood, might be a source of pride once again. But his flawed vision will form the beginning of a dark and complex relationship with his homeland, and see the start of great conflict within his own brilliant and troubled family.
Colm Tóibín’s epic novel is the story of a man of intense contradictions. Although Thomas Mann becomes famous and admired, his inner life is hesitant, fearful and secretive. His blindness to impending disaster in the Great War will force him to rethink his relationship with Germany as Hitler comes to power. He has six children with his clever and fascinating wife, Katia, while his own secret desires appear threaded through his writing. He and Katia deal with exile bravely, doing everything possible to keep the family safe, yet they also suffer the terrible ravages of suicide among Thomas’s siblings, and their own children.
In The Magician, Colm Tóibín captures the profound personal conflict of a very public life, and through this life creates an intimate portrait of the twentieth century.
Literary Fiction Book of the Year
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
LONGLISTED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK DESIGN AWARDS 2022 BEST DESIGNED LITERARY FICTION COVER