Canberra playwright wins premier’s award – again

FOR the second time, Canberra playwright Dylan Van Den Berg has won the $30,000 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, this time for his play “Whitefella Yella Tree”.

NSW Premier,Chris Minns announced the winners on Monday of the $350,000 awards at the State Library of NSW, with Debra Dank’s debut “We Come With This Place” taking out a record four of the 14 prizes, winning Book of the Year ($10,000), Indigenous Writers’ Prize ($30,000), Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40,000) and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5000).

Van Den Berg, who told “CityNews” on Monday night that he felt “very lucky”, also won drama awards at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2021 and the Victorian Premier’s in 2022 for his earlier play, “Milk”.

Late last year he won a Canberra Critics Circle award for “Whitefella Yella Tree” and the $20,000 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award for “The Chosen Vessel”, commissioned by The Street Theatre.

“Whitefella Yella Tree”, commissioned by Griffin Theatre, is an affecting exploration of themes of love, country, invasion and queerness, told through the eyes of two young indigenous men.

According to senior judge Jane McCredie, a record 856 entries exploring a huge range of styles and subject matter had been assessed.

Other winners

• The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000) went to “Women I Know” by Katerina Gibson.
• The Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000) went to “The Singer and Other Poems” by Kim Cheng Boey.
• The Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000) went to “The First Scientists: Deadly Inventions and Innovations from Australia’s First Peoples” by Corey Tutt and Blak Douglas.
• The Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature ($30,000) went to “The Upwelling“ by Lystra Rose.
• The Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000) went to “Blaze” by Del Kathryn Barton and Huna Amweero.
• The Multicultural NSW Award ($30,000) went to “The Eulogy” by Jackie Bailey.
• The NSW Premier’s Translation Prize ($30,000 – biennial award) went to “People from Bloomington” by Budi Darma, translated by Tiffany Tsao.
• The University of Sydney People’s Choice Award ($5000) went to “Every Version of You” by Grace Chan”.
• The Special Award ($10,000) went to Bankstown Poetry Slam.