The deliberations for this year’s longlist were the shortest in Stella Prize history. After more than five months of solid reading, and with a pool of 227 entries, it took less than 20 minutes for us to lock down our finalists, so fervent was our consensus. The books on this list have emphatically – joyfully – earned their place.

The swiftness of our decision feels particularly remarkable given the astonishing quality of this year’s entrants. After years of pandemic enervation and isolation, it feels as if something new is brewing in Australian letters – a literature of ambition.

“Ambitious” is a barbed little word in this country, especially for women. But it’s a word we are determined to rescue from the misogyny, faint praise and tall poppy sneering.

The books on our longlist distinguished themselves with their irrepressible ambition. They are books that rattle our cages and dismantle our cultural scripts – books that brim with ideas and desires. Some are genre-bending and genre-busting; others are genre masterclasses. Some are quietly potent; others are bombastic and irrepressible. But they all demand – command – our full-hearted, full-minded attention. Tales of recalibration and reckoning.

With one exception, the longlisted books take narrative form: novels, memoirs, essays. Even the dyed-in-the-wool poets on our panel agreed that this was a mighty year for prose. The future of the Australian narrative is retina-burning bright.