Kiwi scoops top Australian award

Slow Water by Annamarie Jagose won the prestigious AU$30,000 fiction prize at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards in October. Jagose has lived in Australia for 12 years and is currently on leave from the University of Melbourne to teach film, TV, and media studies at Auckland University. Slow Water is a fictional account of the trial William Yate; an English missionary charged with the capital crime of homosexuality in colonial Australia. The novel has also been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award.