Evelyn Araluen has been shortlisted for the Stella prize for her second poetry collection The Rot, four years after she became the first ever poet to win the prize for Australian women and non-binary writers.

Announced on Wednesday, the other five books up for the $60,000 prize are Geraldine Brooks’ memoir Memorial Days, Miranda Darling’s novel Fireweather, Lee Lai’s graphic novel Cannon, Marika Sosnowski’s nonfiction 58 Facets: On Violence and the Law, and Tasma Walton’s novel I Am Nannertgarrook.

In February Araluen won $125,000 and the top prize at the Victorian premier’s literary awards for The Rot, a collection that explores grief and solidarity in the age of doomscrolling, particularly the horror felt by many as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza was beamed to phones around the world.

The Rot was inspired by an experience Araluen had while reading two poems at Adelaide writers’ week in 2024, where she was heckled for referring to Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza as a genocide on stage.

Araluen told Guardian Australia last month that The Rot reflected “a really panicked, distressed window of a time, that I hope we all look back on with horror and despair and a real sense of regret.”

“I tried to make sure that the book very clearly documented that we knew what was happening in our names and we did not stop it,” she said. “I hope that this book dates. I hope it reads as incredibly naive and doesn’t catch a glimpse of the political ambitions that are going to be realised in the future. But if it doesn’t, I want it to be a record of a very, very uncomfortable truth that we’re all going to have to live with.”

The Goorie and Koori poet won the Stella prize in 2022 for her debut collection, Dropbear.

The six shortlisted books were chosen from the 212 books entered this year. Each of the shortlisted authors receives $5,000 in prize money.

Brooks’ memoir Memorial Days explores her grief after the sudden death of her partner of 35 years, the journalist Tony Horwitz. The award-winning Australian-American author left her home in Martha’s Vineyard to travel to Flinders Island, off Tasmania’s northeast tip, in order to reflect on their life together.

Darling’s novel Fireweather is a follow-up to her 2024 novel Thunderhead, and follows a woman who must prove she is sane while dealing with the collapse of her marriage, domestic life and the climate.

Non-binary graphic novelist Lai is nominated a second time for the Stella with Cannon, about a queer Chinese woman who suppresses her emotions until they erupt out of her.

Sosnowski, a legal anthropologist, is nominated for 58 Facets, a hybrid of memoir and investigative nonfiction that examines how individuals can be both beneficiaries and victims of history, through her work in Syria and the story of her own family. These include her grandfather, a Holocaust survivor who fled to Australia, and her great-uncle Chaim Gaon, who played a role in the formation of the Israeli military.

And Walton is nominated for I am Nannertgarrook, a fictionalised retelling of the life of her titular ancestor, who was abducted from Boonwurrung Country and sold into slave labour in Tasmania.

Chair of judges, Sophie Gee, said the six shortlisted books “reflect the creative vitality, literary rigor, and expressive richness of Australian women’s and non-binary writing”.

“None of these books was as we expected, going in. Each of them moved us to the core through language, the truth of their emotion, and the honesty of what it means to be human, across time and space,” Gee said.

The 2026 Stella prize winner will be announced on 13 May. Last year the prize was won by Michelle de Kretser for her novel Theory and Practice.

Evelyn Araluen has won both the $100,000 Victorian prize for literature and the $25,000 Indigenous writing category at this year’s Victorian premier’s literary awards, for her second poetry collection The Rot.

Selected from almost 700 books entered for the prize, The Rot won the two awards on Thursday night, having also been shortlisted in the poetry category. The Goorie and Koori poet won the 2022 Stella prize, and was shortlisted for three premier’s literary prizes, for her debut collection Dropbear.

Speaking before she was aware she had also won the overall prize, Araluen told Guardian Australia she was “excited” to have won the $25,000 Indigenous writing category. Asked if she felt she might have a chance at the top prize, she replied: “Oh God no, I’m not getting a look in at that. I’ll be quite comfortable with my prize, thank you.”

The judges called The Rot “a work of remarkable poetic intelligence; formally bold, emotionally exacting and politically uncompromising” and “a vital intervention in this country’s cultural conversation.” It was written in the span of a few months last year, and was inspired by her experience reading two poems at Adelaide writers’ week in 2024, where she was heckled for referring to Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza as a genocide on stage.

“These poems were about witnessing a genocide and the feeling of inertia and grief and rage and passivity that sits in the body when you feel so powerless against our government’s complicity in that genocide,” Araluen said. “I had people get up and leave and shout at me and have a go at me … I shouted back and felt so enraged. But I had incredibly beautiful people coming up to me afterwards, some of them crying, saying the poems had helped them understand how they have been feeling.”

After she won the Stella for Dropbear, Araluen spoke about how she had been “one paycheck away from complete poverty”, juggling multiple temporary jobs in the arts while working on her debut. She has since taken a full-time job as an academic, which she said initially “felt like a compromise” but had “allowed me the safety to be able to write more.”

She worked on The Rot “after work, after dinner, in the bath” for months, though she now admits that such prolonged focus on such a traumatic subject was “irresponsible of me.”

“I do not recommend drinking wine in the bath and listening to Mitski and crying and calling that a writing practice,” she added.

The Rot reflects “a really panicked, distressed window of a time, that I hope we all look back on with horror and despair and a real sense of regret,” Araluen said.

“I tried to make sure that the book very clearly documented that we knew what was happening in our names and we did not stop it,” she added. “I hope that this book dates. I hope it reads as incredibly naive and doesn’t catch a glimpse of the political ambitions that are going to be realised in the future. But if it doesn’t, I want it to be a record of a very, very uncomfortable truth that we’re all going to have to live with.”

Araluen also called on the Australian government to reform the way arts prizes are taxed. Some, like the prime minister’s literary awards, are tax-free, but most, including the Stella and all the state premier literary awards, are taxed as income.

“Winning the Stella prize was really fantastic but it was taxed at nearly 50%,” she said. “When you spend sometimes years of your life working on something, and you have good fortune that you can’t have possibly planned for or anticipated, the impact of a prize can sometimes be quite disruptive financially.”

“Other countries have really intelligent taxation laws that allow artists to continue working in periods of heightened prosperity versus significantly lower incomes. This is not me saying, I don’t believe in tax. Obviously tax is incredibly important. But a lot of people assumed I must suddenly be rich after the Stella, and once you take out tax and Hecs debts and I needed to get my teeth fixed and we had used our superannuation to survive Covid … we don’t really have the advantage of solid, sustainable investment we can rely on.”

In other categories at the Victorian premier’s literary awards, this year’s $2,000 people’s choice award went to Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah, the Australian-Palestinian academic who was controversially dumped from this year’s Adelaide writers’ week, a decision that triggered the collapse of the annual literary event.

Omar Musa won the fiction prize for his novel Fierceland, about two siblings from Malaysian Borneo who must grapple with the legacy of their father, a palm-oil baron, after his death. The judges praised the novel’s “glittering prose and sweeping, ambitious form”.

The nonfiction prize went to Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family by Australian-Palestinian writer Micaela Sahhar, which the judges described as “a remarkable debut memoir that is simultaneously a work of poetry in its lyricism and feeling.”

The children’s literature category was won by Zeno Sworder for his picture book Once I Was a Giant. The young adult prize was renamed the John Marsden prize this year, in tribute to the famed young adult author who died in December 2024; it was won by Margot McGovern for her horror novel This Stays Between Us.

The poetry prize went to Filipina-Australian poet Eunice Andrada for her collection KONTRA, playwright Emilie Collyer won the drama category for her play Super, and the prize for an unpublished manuscript went to The Kookaburra by Charlotte Guest.

The Victorian premier’s literary awards have been running since 1985.

2026 Victorian premier’s literary awards: winners list

Victorian prize for literature: The Rot by Evelyn Araluen

Fiction: Fierceland by Omar Musa

Non-fiction: Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family by Micaela Sahhar

Poetry: KONTRA by Eunice Andrada

Drama: Super by Emilie Collyer

Indigenous writing: The Rot by Evelyn Araluen

Children’s literature: Once I Was a Giant by Zeno Sworder

John Marsden prize for writing for young adults: This Stays Between Us by Margot McGovern

Unpublished manuscript: The Kookaburra by Charlotte Guest

People’s choice award: Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah