Sarah Holland-Batt’s wins the 2023 Stella Prize

We are pleased to congratulate Sarah Holland-Batt the winner of the 2023 Stella Prize.

The Wilson Foundation has been the official Prize partner since 2020. 

The Prize was awarded to Sarah for her poetry collection, The Jaguar. Sarah who is an award-winning poet and Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Studies at QUT, wrote the poems as she observed the devastation of her father’s worsening Parkinson’s Disease. The result is a “remarkable” collection that the 2023 Stella Judging Panel said, “investigates the body as a site of both pleasure and frailty.”

Awarded annually, the Stella Prize recognises original, excellent, and engaging work by Australian women and non-binary writers. 

Alice Pung OAM, 2023 Stella Prize Chair of Judges said:

“In The Jaguar, Sarah Holland-Batt writes about death as tenderly as we’ve ever read about birth. She focuses on the pedestrian details of hospitals and aged care facilities, enabling us to see these institutions as distinct universes teeming with life and love. Her imagery is unexpected and unforgettable, and often blended with humour. This is a book that cuts through to the core of what it means to descend into frailty, old age, and death. It unflinchingly observes the complex emotions of caring for loved ones, contending with our own mortality and above all – continuing to live.”

Karen Wilson, Chair, the Wilson Foundation said:

“The Stella Prize has an extraordinary impact on Australian literature. Annually the Prize provides us with a collection of authors and books that are brave, provocative, and original. As a literary award it has set the benchmark for gender equality and cultural change. 2023 is the Wilson Foundation’s final year as the Stella Prize Award sponsor which we have had the pleasure of supporting since 2020. We wish the Stella Prize ongoing and continued success.” 

You can watch Sarah Holland-Batt’s acceptance speech here and listen to her interview on ABC Breakfast Radio here.