The Stella prize-winning author’s work tackles relationship between intent and actions, while testing readers’ assumptions about autobiography
When Michelle de Kretser decided to use her acceptance of the Stella prize in May to speak out about Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the Australian government’s role in the ongoing humanitarian crisis, she admitted the speech might be a “career ender”.
It wasn’t: on Monday, De Kretser collected the $80,000 Prime Minister’s Literary award for fiction for the same book, her eighth novel, Theory & Practice.