David MALOUF wins the Australia-Asia Literary Award

Australian novelist, short-story writer and poet David Malouf has won the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award, Australia’s newest and richest literary prize, for his short-story collection, The Complete Stories (Random House, 2008), which gathers both a new collection, Every Move You Make, and all of his previously published stories. “It’s a wonderful piece of writing, a combination of decades of work, and it captures the human condition in such a deep and intense way,” said Nury Vittachi, one of the judges of the prize. “His characters are very ordinary people and he captures the intense joys and sadness of ordinary life.” The A$110,000 prize was awarded in Perth on Friday, November 21, 2008.