Tasmanian author wins Victorian Premier’s Literary Award

Kylie Eastley Communications Manager Tasmanian Writers Centre
Last night the Victorian Premier Dr Denis Napthine announced that Tasmanian writer, Henry Reynolds had been awarded the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non –Fiction.
This prestigious award includes not just the notoriety associated with the prize that is associated with the Wheeler Centre, but includes $25 000 in award money.

His book The Forgotten War meticulously documents the conflicts between colonization and the Aboriginals. The Forgotten War follows up on the story told in Henry Reynolds’ seminal book The Other Side of the Frontier (1981), which argued that the settlement of Australia had a high level of violence and conflict that we chose to ignore. The Forgotten war draws on thirty years of research since Reynolds’ earlier work, and reflects the debate and change in our nation’s thinking about our own history.

Henry Reynolds is one of Australia’s best-known and most prolific historians. He grew up in Hobart and was educated at the University of Tasmania. In 1965 he accepted a lectureship at James Cook University in Townsville, which sparked an interest in the history of relations between settlers and Aborigines. His pioneering scholarly work, The Other Side of the Frontier (1981), was critical in changing understandings of the Australian frontier. His other books include The Law of the Land (1987), This Whispering in our Hearts (1998) and Why Weren’t We Told (1999). In 2000 he took up a professorial fellowship at the University of Tasmania. Since then he has written Drawing the Global Colour Line with Marilyn Lake and co-authored What’s Wrong With Anzac?

( from http://wheelercentre.com/projects/victorian-premier-s-literary-awards-2014/book/forgotten-war/ )