Bernice Barry and Meg Caddy have won the 2026 ARA Historical Novel Prize, with Wayne Marshall picking up the Readers’ Choice award.
The winning titles are:
Adult ($100,000)
- The Names of a Hare (Bernice Barry, Fremantle Press).
Children and Young Adult ($30,000)
- A Flash in the Dust (Meg Caddy, University of Queensland Press).
Readers’ Choice ($5,000)
- Henry Goes Bush (Wayne Marshall, Picador).
The winners were chosen from works shortlisted in September. The remaining shortlisted authors receive $5,000 each.
The judging panel for the Adult prize – chaired by Linda Funnell, with panellists David Whish-Wilson, Renée Otmar, Robyn Cadwallader and Theresa Smith – said: “The Names of a Hare is a novel of great depth and beauty that fully immerses the reader in the life of its protagonist in 17th-century Cornwall. Bernice Barry’s subtle, considered and poetic prose works like a spell, building slowly and imperceptibly, attentively describing the natural world and the lives of rural folk in a time of great historical turmoil.”
The judging panel for the Children and Young Adult prize – chaired by Sophie Masson, with panellists Bec Kavanagh and Stacy Gregg – said: “A Flash In the Dust, set in WA in 1899, stood out for its powerful exploration of marginalised histories, within a suspenseful and characterful story which is grounded confidently in its research. Beginning in the forbidding atmosphere of Fremantle Asylum and developing through an increasingly dangerous search for the truth about a murder, this bold, compelling historical adventure brings queer adolescents back in from the fringes of history.”
Run by the Historical Novel Society Australasia, the ARA Historical Novel Prize features a total prize pool of $155,000, making it the largest individual literary prize in Australasia, according to the organisers.
Last year’s joint Adult winners were Robbie Arnott for Dusk (Picador) and Tasma Walton for I Am Nannertgarrook (Bundyi), while Suzanne Leal won the 2025 Children and Young Adult prize for The Year We Escaped (HarperCollins).
