Wednesday 10 December 2003 - Release No. 2
Another Victory for Marr and Wilkinson
Two of Australia’s leading journalists, David Marr and Marian Wilkinson have won the 2003 Human Rights Award for Arts Non-Fiction for their compelling book Dark Victory.
The Arts Non-Fiction category included entries from a range of styles and subjects, including documentary biographies, autobiographies, historical essays, current affairs reporting and film documentaries.
This year’s winner drew attention to the political motivations – and the human cost – of the Tampa crisis and the ‘children overboard’ affair, which generated so much coverage in the lead-up to the last federal election.
With Dark Victory, Marr and Wilkinson sought to dig behind the headlines and ‘worked with tenacity’ to uncover ‘new and impressive research, covering all aspects of the events, by interviewing the people involved and gaining access to FOI documents’.
In doing so they also ‘displayed a genuine humanity and compassion to the people at the centre of these events – the asylum seekers.’ According to the judges, Dark Victory was ‘like ten Four Corners bound together’ a ‘phenomenal achievement and a genuine page-turner.’
Judges highly commended Dancing with strangers by Inga Clendinnen, which looks at the story of early contact between the British and the Indigenous people in the first few days after the First Fleet landed. According the judges, Dancing with Strangers is a terrific story ‘written with fresh prose’ that ‘humanises some of the main characters from that time, such as Benelong and Arthur Philip’.
Richard McLean’s book Recovered, not cured: A journey through schizophrenia was also highly commended. Richard’s aim was to write a book to educate, inform and entertain people affected by mental illness.
According to the judges this is a ‘brave, bold book which invites the reader to share something of Richard’s experience. It opens up a rare window on schizophrenia, providing illumination that may do a lot for readers whose lives are affected by schizophrenia, particularly young people.’
Last updated 21 June 2004.
