We are thrilled to announce CURROWAN by Bronwyn Adcock has won the 2022 Walkley Book Award! A big congratulations to Bronwyn and all the shortlisted authors – a special mention goes to Sean Kelly, Black Inc. author of THE GAME: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, who was also included on this list. We are so proud to see these deeply affecting stories centre stage – it reminds us how important it is to continue to publish quality non-fiction that gets to the heart of the Australian experience. ⁠

Presented as part of the annual Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism, the Walkley Book Award ‘celebrates Australian writers who take enduring subjects from news, eyewitness accounts, investigations and history’ and whose books ‘bring readers immersive detail, clear analysis and new revelations’.

This is the second year running a Black Inc. title has won the award, with The Winter Road by Kate Holden taking out last year’s prize.

View the full list of winners via The Walkley News

Learn more about Bronwyn's win via the Books and Publishing website

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Currowan: The Story of a Fire and a Community During Australia's Worst Summer by Bronwyn Adcock 

Winner of the 2022 Walkley Book Award. An insider’s account of surviving one of Australia’s worst bushfires, and how we live with fire in a climate-changed world

‘Adcock’s heart is racing from the first page, and so was mine. This hectic, harrowing account of the Black Summer inferno is told from a journalist’s first-hand captivity on an east coast apparently on fire from top to bottom, but deftly manages to tell the dramatic stories of many others who watched the flames come on. For those of us who were in the fires, this is a story telling urgent truths of an extraordinary ordeal; for those who didn’t see a flame, who want to know what our communities have been through, what can be learned, and what faces us in the future, it is an essential one.’ —Kate Holden, author of The Winter Road⁠
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Currowan is a portrait of tragedy, survival and the power of community. Set against the backdrop of a nation in the grip of an intensifying crisis, this immersive account of a region facing disaster is a powerful glimpse into a new, more dangerous world – and how we build resilience.
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