Announced in Sydney tonight, the winners of the 2026 ARA Historical Novel Prize, Australasia’s richest individual literary prize with a total prize pool of $155,000, reclaim women’s histories and powerful folklore, re-centre queer Australians, and reimagine colonial perspectives.
These award’s organisers say these award-winning titles bring overlooked perspectives back into the historical record and challenge familiar versions of the past.
Bernice Barry’s The Names of a Hare follows a woman condemned to a life of constant reinvention as she outruns accusations of witchcraft for practising healing and herbal lore in 17th-century Cornwall. The novel is steeped in Cornwall’s language and folklore, while its landscape is rendered with beauty and evocative detail.
In Meg Caddy’s A Flash in the Dust, it is 1899; bushrangers patrol the roads and girls who do not conform risk institutionalisation. Grounded in extensive research, the novel brings queer adolescents back from the margins of history and serves as a powerful reminder that everyone’s story deserves a place on the page.
Wayne Marshall’s Henry Goes Bush reimagines Henry Lawson’s infamous 1892 journey to Bourke to “find the real bush” as a surreal action story. The novel explores Lawson’s famous rivalry with Banjo Paterson as a battle over competing visions of the Australian bush, challenging colonial myths surrounding two literary legends.
Winners
Adult category winner Bernice Barry said The Names of a Hare was a story she had lived with for many years.
“This story has lived with me for many years, so receiving the 2026 ARA Historical Novel Prize for The Names of a Hare is profoundly moving, humbling and thrilling in equal measure. Thank you to the judges, the ARA Group and the HNSA for the biggest surprise of my life.”
Children and Young Adult category winner Meg Caddy said they were humbled by their win for A Flash in the Dust:
“I’m humbled and thrilled to receive the ARA Historical Novel Prize in the CYA category. Thank you to the judges, and the ARA Group and HNSA for their generosity. Flash is inspired by Australian histories of queer courage, resourcefulness and joy; it is an honour to help carry them forwards.”
Adult Prize Judges
The Adult category was chaired by Linda Funnell, with panellists David Whish-Wilson, Renée Otmar, Robyn Cadwallader and Theresa Smith.
The judges described The Names of a Hare as “a novel of great depth and beauty” and praised its rich evocation of seventeenth-century Cornwall, poetic prose, and exploration of folklore, wisdom and survival in an era marked by fear of witchcraft.
Children and Young Adult Prize
The Children and Young Adult category was chaired by Sophie Masson, with panellists Bec Kavanagh and Stacy Gregg.
The judges praised A Flash in the Dust for its exploration of marginalised histories and its depiction of queer adolescents in nineteenth-century Western Australia.
Shortlisted Authors
The other shortlisted authors, each receiving $5,000, were Lauren Keenan for The Other Catherine, Fiona Kelly McGregor for The Trap, Jackie French for Cleopatra: The Girl Who Would Be King and Clare Hallifax for A House Divided.
The Readers’ Choice award went to Wayne Marshall for his work Henry Goes Bush.
“I’m absolutely delighted to have won the Readers’ Choice Award as part of the 2026 ARA Historical Novel Prize. That Henry Goes Bush was longlisted for the prize in the first place was already a massive thrill.”
Marshall thanked readers for their support of his unconventional novel, which revisits a key moment in Australian literary history.
Supporting Australian Historical Fiction
HNSA Chair Elisabeth Storrs said the winning novels demonstrated the power of historical fiction through “irresistible prose, unforgettable characters, meticulous research, and epic storytelling.”
ARA Group Executive Chair and CEO Edward Federman congratulated the winners and reiterated the company’s commitment to supporting literature and the arts through the prize.
Previous winners have included Robbie Arnott’s Dusk, Tasma Walton’s I Am Nannertgarrook, Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie, Gail Jones’ Salonika Burning, Tom Keneally’s Corporal Hitler’s Pistol, and Katrina Nannestad’s We Are Wolves and Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief.
For further information visit: https://hnsa.org.au/ara-historical-novel-prize/
