UQ success at literary awards

UQ lecturer Venero Armanno was awarded the top fiction prize at the 2002 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards in Brisbane.

There was also success for his Masters student Nerida Newton who took home a $20,000 cheque and a publishing contract with The University of Queensland Press after winning the award for Best Emerging Queensland Author.

Mr Armanno who has published five novels said his book The Volcano had received a tremendous critical reception.

“Whilst writers don’t write for awards, winning this does bring some sense of prestige to a book,” he said.

The prize, which included a cheque for $25,000, was Mr Armanno’s biggest award to date. He told how he was short-listed among the strong competition of Tim Winton, Richard Flanagan and Robert Dessaix.

“You’d have to say I was the outsider by a long margin, but it’s good for an outsider to win sometimes,” he said.

The Volcano is set in both Sicily and Brisbane and begins in the 1930s. The main character Emilio Aquilo lives a life of introspection and self-imposed exile under Mount Etna, the volcano of the title. His determination to live life on his own terms and the arrival of Rocco Fuentes turn Emilio into a criminal and he flees to Australia where he spends his life trying to forget the past; something he can never do.

Mr Armanno is currently working on a new book entitled Watch The Moon Come Down. In 1985 he was short-listed for the prestigious Australian/Vogel literary award. This year so was his student Nerida Newton.

Nerida went on to win the Queensland Premier’s Emerging Writer’s Award with her first book The lambing Flat.

“It’s an historical novel, set in the westward settlements of Australia in the 1860s. “On a basic level it`s a book about displacement and the search for belonging,” she said.

Nerida who is studying for a Masters of Philosophy in Creative Writing said it was the first major award she had won. The Lambing Flat, which Nerida wrote under the guidance of her former supervisor Ms Jan McKemmish will be released late next year.

Another of Mr Armanno’s students Alasdair Duncan was also short-listed in the same category as Nerida for his book Sushi Central. Alasdair achieved the next best thing to a prize as he was approached by a publisher and offered a contract.

Premier Beattie who announced the award winners said a tremendous depth and variety of talent had been displayed by all entrants.

“The judges had a difficult time choosing the winners from a record field of 809 nominees from across the country,” he said.

For more information, contact Venero Armanno on (telephone 07 3365 3324, email: v.armanno@uq.edu.au) or UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 3367, email: communications@uq.edu.au).