Authors Moreno Giovannoni and Kate Wild led an esteemed field of writers at The Age’s annual Book of the Year Awards tonight during the opening night of the Melbourne Writers Festival. 

With Giovannoni’s novel The Immigrants taking out the fiction category, and Wild’s investigative novel The Red House awarded best non-fiction, the winners each received $10,000 thanks to the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund. 

Both authors were praised by the judges – author and critic Bram Presser; essayist and critic Beejay Silcox; The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s Canberra Bureau Chief Michelle Griffin; and author, reviewer and mission director of Caritas Australia, Michael McGirr – for their deeply human stories. 

Giovannoni’s novel draws heavily on the experiences of his late parents, Italian immigrants who came to Australia in the 1950s, and was described by judges as a masterclass in migrant fiction and “the combustible art of telling Australian stories.”

Journalist and author Kate Wild won the non-fiction award for her investigation of the fatal shooting of Indigenous man Kumanjayi Walker by a white police officer in the Northern Territory in 2019. Judges described The Red House as an “important book but it gives us no sermons, only a compulsively readable story.”

Presenting the awards in the Athenaeum Theatre, The Age deputy editor Orietta Guerrera said: “It’s a great pleasure for The Age to be a partner of the festival, and to back tonight’s awards: the 45th Age Book of the Year. We are proud of The Age’s long history covering books, supporting writers across the country, and equally importantly, encouraging reading.”

The Age Book of the Year Awards has been running for 45 years and has honoured some of the most celebrated writers in Australia including David Malouf, Thea Astley, Tony Birch, Tim Winton, Elizabeth Jolley and Robbie Arnott. 

Friday 8 May, 2026