Queensland Literary Awards winner makes plea over warnings of genocide in Gaza
Despite some controversy, the Queensland Literary Awards went ahead and the winners’ list proves censorship is not an issue.
A rigorous interrogation of some of Australia’s most troubling criminal cases involving Indigenous people has won the top prize at the 2025 Queensland Literary Awards.
Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist and researcher Dr Amy McQuire has won the $30,000 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance for Black Witness (University of Queensland Press).
Award judges said Black Witness was a work of outstanding scholarly rigour and moral clarity: “Grounded in meticulous evidence, it offers a powerful indictment of systemic injustice and underscores the need for truth-telling. This is a vital contribution to Indigenous scholarship and the national reckoning we so urgently need.”
Dr McQuire’s book highlights the media’s failings in Indigenous affairs reporting and she used her acceptance speech to criticise child imprisonment and the silencing of those warning of genocide in Gaza
A prize pool totalling $261,000 was awarded across 11 categories including fiction, non-fiction, poetry and published and unpublished work.
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The $15,000 The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award was won by Emily Maguire for Rapture (Allen & Unwin), a reimagination of a young woman in ninth-century Europe that judges described as “a vivid tale of adventure and risk, written with the compelling, page-turning wonder of a high-stakes thriller”.
Poet Chris Andrews was awarded the $17,500 Judith Wright Calanthe Award for his “observational but deeply complex” collection The Oblong Plot (Puncher & Wattman), which Andrews colourfully describes as the result of “years of pfaffing around”.
Since 2014 State Library of Queensland has managed the awards on behalf of the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, in collaboration with sponsors, industry partners and the writing community.
The awards are assessed by panels of independent judges who include authors, critics, academics, publishers, media professionals, editors, librarians, reviewers, teachers, arts organisation representatives and booksellers.
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State Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek congratulated Dr McQuire and other winners.
“Queensland’s literary sector is part of a vibrant statewide arts and cultural scene, which will play a pivotal role in sharing our unique stories with the world in the lead-up to the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond,” he says.
Awards often create controversy and this year’s was the decision to rescind a $15,000 fellowship awarded to Indigenous writer K A Ren Wyld over comments about the conflict in Gaza made on social media last year.
The decision was made by the Arts Minister, who told State Parliament that “the author, via comments on social media, has praised the mastermind of the 7 October Hamas-led terror attacks as a ‘martyr’ and a ‘hero’.”
“Words matter, and that is why we have taken the decision that this award should not be presented at the State Library,” Langbroek said.
Some judges quit over the minister’s decision but the awards went ahead regardless.
For the full list of winners, go to slq.qld.gov.au/get-involved/awards-and-fellowships/queensland-literary-awards