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Stella > The Stella Prize > 2020

The 2020 Stella Prize

The winner of the 2020 Stella Prize is Jess Hill for her nonfiction work See What You Made Me Do. Hill receives $50,000 in prize money thanks to the generous support of the Wilson Foundation.

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2020 Winner

Jess Hill

See What You Made Me Do

Nonfiction · Black Inc

“Jess Hill’s four-year investigation of the parlous numbers of domestic abuse in Australia is ground-breaking. She has ignited a nationwide debate on the causes and solutions to a devastating problem, garnering significant media attention.”

– 2020 Stella Prize Judges

About the author

Jess Hill is an investigative journalist who has been writing about domestic violence since 2014. Prior to this, she was a producer for ABC Radio, a Middle East correspondent for The Global Mail, and an investigative journalist for Background Briefing. Her reporting on domestic violence has won two Walkley awards, an Amnesty International award and three Our Watch awards.


2020 Stella Prize Shortlist

Jess Hill
See What You Made Me Do
Caro Llewellyn
Diving into Glass
Favel Parrett
There Was Still Love
Josephine Rowe
Here Until August
Tara June Winch
The Yield
Charlotte Wood
The Weekend

News
April 2020

Jess Hill’s 2020 Stella Prize acceptance speech

Catch up on the 2020 Stella Prize broadcast, or read Jess Hill’s acceptance speech.

Read
Interviews
March 2020

The Stella Interview: Jess Hill on See What You Made Me Do

In this special Stella interview Jess Hill shares some of her favourite Australian writers and what she’s working on next.

Read
News
February 2020

Announcing the 2020 Stella Prize longlist

“These authors are craftspeople serious about their intention and dedicated to the art.”

Read

Further reading

Listen to ‘Jess Hill wins Stella Prize for ‘See What You Made Me’ on RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly

Read ‘Does writing books still matter in an era of environmental catastrophe?’ by Briohny Doyle, The Guardian

Read ‘Stella prize 2020: Charlotte Wood, Favel Parrett and Tara June Winch make shortlist’ by Stephanie Convery, The Guardian


2020 Stella Prize Longlist

Joey Bui
Lucky Ticket
Gay’wu Group of Women
Song Spirals
Jess Hill
See What You Made Me Do
Caro Llewellyn
Diving into Glass
Yumna Kassab
The House of Youssef
Mandy Ord
When One Person Dies the Whole World is Over
Favel Parrett
There Was Still Love
Josephine Rowe
Here Until August
Vikki Wakefield
This is How We Change the Ending
Tara June Winch
The Yield
Charlotte Wood
The Weekend
Sally Young
Paper Emperors


This year, the Stella Prize reading took us through a litany of serious topics and across a host of different places. While first-time authors wowed us, established authors brought out satisfying exhalations. Publishers big and small showed their excellent taste and continued their commitment to publishing a vast range of voices. Whether we were looking for diversity or not, it was there smack-bang in front of us — so many rich influences, so many distinct points of view, so many ways of depicting the current landscape. The world is in crisis but our artists are expressing themselves as powerfully and eloquently as ever as they courageously grapple with the wild mess of it all.

The writing that we read for this year’s Stella Prize was an education in and of itself, and there were easily twelve more books we could have added to this list. Our writers continue to attempt to tell stories big and bold, as well as those small yet significant. The differences across the reading, in style and content were reassuringly reflective and disruptive.

The 2020 Stella Prize Longlist is exciting and varied. It includes a graphic memoir, a young adult novel, indigenous stories told in traditional Aboriginal songspirals, a personal memoir that extends out to social history, plentiful tight and absorbing short stories, fiction with historical context, and some hefty nonfiction. Like many Australians, so many of these stories traverse continents. There are numerous moments of grace.

The twelve books we’ve chosen are all ambitious texts — bold and unapologetic. This is more than just a snapshot of this time and place, it is an off-road adventure that will force you to think and rethink. These voices are extraordinarily rich, and these writers are wielding language powerfully. We are lucky to have them.


2020 Judges

Louise Swinn (Chair)
Jack Latimore
Zoya Patel
Leni Shilton
Monica Attard

This program is proudly supported by:


    Stella Prize Award Sponsor


    Program Partners



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328 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000

info@stella.org.au


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