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WA writers shortlisted for the 2015 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

Author Joan London. Picture: Will Yeoman

Three very different books by WA writers Joan London, John Mateer and Sami Sha have been shortlisted for this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

Joan London’s The Golden Age (Random House), which the award judges described as “a work of quiet beauty... set largely in a children’s polio convalescent home in mid-20th-century Perth”, has been shortlisted fro the $40,000 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.

John Mateer’s startling, linguistically inventive and culturally promiscuous poetry collection Unbelievers, or The Moor (Giramondo) made the shortlist for the $30,000 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, while Sami Sha’s hilarious, moving memoir I, Migrant: A Comedian’s Journey from Karachi to the Outback (Allen & Unwin) is up for the $20,000 Multicultural NSW (Community Relations Commission for a multicultural NSW) Award.

Twenty-four judges considered hundreds of entries across nine prize categories, with the winners to be announced on Monday May 18. For the full shortlist visit sl.nsw.gov.au.