Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has a remuneration of A$25,000. The winner of this category prize vies with 4 other category winners for overall Victorian Prize for Literature valued at an additional A$100,000.

The prize was formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction from inception until 2010 when the awards were re-established under the stewardship of the Wheeler Centre and restarted with new prize amounts and a new name. The Nettie Palmer Prize was valued at A$30,000 in 2010. According to the State Library of Victoria which managed the prize from 1997 to 2010, "This prize is offered for a published work of non-fiction. Books consisting principally of photographs or illustrations are ineligible unless the accompanying text is of substantial length."^[1] Palmer wrote regularly for numerous newspapers all round Australia. She wrote on a wide range of topics, from environment to cultural events, reviewing all important books being published in Australia, America, Europe and elsewhere.

Winners of the Overall Victorian Prize for Literature have a blue ribbon ().

Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction winners and finalists

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2011	Mark McKenna	An Eye for Eternity: The Life Of Manning Clark	Winner	[2]
	Tim Bonyhady	Good Living Street	Finalist	[2]
	Fiona Capp	My Blood’s Country	Finalist	[2]
	Cordelia Fine	Delusions of Gender	Finalist	[2]
	Stephen Foster	A Private Empire	Finalist	[2]
	Anna Krien	Into the Woods	Finalist	[2]
2012	Bill Gammage	The Biggest Estate on Earth	Winner	[3][4]
	James Boyce	1835: The Founding of Melbourne & The Conquest of Australia	Finalist	[3][5]
	Kerryn Goldsworthy	Adelaide	Finalist	[3][5]
	Simon Leys	The Hall of Uselessness	Finalist	[3][5]
	Brenda Niall	True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack	Finalist	[3][5]
	Alice Pung	Her Father's Daughter	Finalist	[3][5]
2014[a]	Henry Reynolds	Forgotten War	Winner	[6]
	Germaine Greer	White Beech	Finalist	[7][8]
	Gideon Haigh	On Warne	Finalist	[7][8]
	Robert Kenny	Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir	Finalist	[7][8]
	Kristina Olsson	Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir	Finalist	[7][8]
	Helen Trinca	Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John	Finalist	[7][8]
	NPY Women's Council	Commended: Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari	Finalist	[7][8]
2015	Alan Atkinson	The Europeans in Australia: Volume Three: Nation	Winner	[9][10]
	Erik Jensen	Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen[b]	Finalist	[9][11][12]
	Tess Lea	Darwin	Finalist	[9][11][12]
	Tim Low	Where Song Began	Finalist	[9][11][12]
	Julie Szego	The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama	Finalist	[9][11][12]
	Don Watson	The Bush	Finalist	[9][11][12]
2016	Gerald Murnane	Something for the Pain	Winner	[13][14]
	Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan	Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed	Finalist	[15]
	Karen Lamb	Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather	Finalist	[15]
	George Megalogenis	Australia’s Second Chance	Finalist	[15]
	Drusilla Modjeska	Second Half First	Finalist	[15]
	Brenda Niall	Mannix	Finalist	[15]
2017	Madeline Gleeson	Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru	Winner	[16]
	Deng Adut with Ben Mckelvey	Songs of a War Boy	Finalist	[17]
	Maxine Beneba Clarke	The Hate Race	Finalist	[17]
	Sarah Ferguson with Patricia Drum	The Killing Season Uncut	Finalist	[17]
	Kim Mahood	Position Doubtful	Finalist	[17]
	Arnold Zable	The Fighter	Finalist	[17]
2018	Sarah Krasnostein	The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay & Disaster	Winner	[18][19]
	Georgia Blain	The Museum of Words: A Memoir of Language, Writing and Mortality	Finalist	[18][20]
	Kate Cole-Adams	Anaesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness	Finalist	[18][20]
	Mary-Rose MacColl	For a Girl: A True Story of Secrets, Motherhood and Hope	Finalist	[18][20]
	Alexis Wright	Tracker	Finalist	[18][20]
2019	Behrouz Boochani	No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison	Winner	[21]
	Jessie Cole	Staying: A Memoir	Finalist	[22]
	Chloe Hooper	The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire	Finalist	[22]
	Bri Lee	Eggshell Skull	Finalist	[22]
	Sofija Stefanovic	Miss Ex-Yugoslavia	Finalist	[22]
	Maria Tumarkin	Axiomatic	Finalist	[22]
2020	Christina Thompson	Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia	Winner	[23][24]
	Chloe Higgins	The Girls	Finalist	[25]
	Jess Hill	See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse	Finalist	[25]
	Lizzie O'Shea	Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology	Finalist	[25]
	Archie Roach	Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music	Finalist	[25]
	Gay’wu Group of Women	Songspirals: Sharing Women's Wisdom of Country Through Songlines	Finalist	[25]
2021	Paddy Manning	Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing Us	Winner	[26]
	Kylie Maslen	Show Me Where It Hurts	Finalist	[27][28]
	Louise Milligan	Witness	Finalist	[27][28]
	Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly	Songlines: The Power and Promise	Finalist	[27][28]
	Ellena Savage	Blueberries	Finalist	[27][28]
	Victor Steffensen	Fire Country: How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia	Finalist	[27][28]
2022	Amani Haydar	The Mother Wound	Winner	[29][30]
	Randa Abdel-Fattah	Coming of Age in the War on Terror	Finalist	[31]
	Danielle Celermajer	Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future	Finalist	[31]
	Veronica Gorrie	Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience	Finalist	[31][29]
	Fiona McGregor	Buried Not Dead	Finalist	[31]
	Chelsea Watego	Another Day in the Colony	Finalist	[31]
2023	Eda Gunaydin	Root & Branch: Essays on Inheritance	Winner	[32][33][34]
	Shannon Burns	Childhood	Finalist	[32][35]
	Louisa Lim	Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong	Finalist	[32][35]
	Kylie Moore-Gilbert	The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison	Finalist	[32][35]
	Sally Olds	People Who Lunch: Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living	Finalist	[32][35]
	Sam Wallman	Our Members Be Unlimited: A Comic about Workers and Their Unions	Finalist	[32][35]
2024	Ellen van Neerven	Personal Score: Sport, culture, identity	Winner	[36][37]
	Kris Kneen	Fat Girl Dancing	Finalist	[36]
	Antony Loewenstein	The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world	Finalist	[36]
	Chris Masters	Flawed Hero: Truth, lies and war crimes	Finalist	[36]
	David Marr	Killing for Country: A family story	Finalist	[36]
	Jordana Silverstein	Cruel Care: A history of children at our borders	Finalist	[36]
2025	Susan Hampton	Anything Can Happen	Winner	[38]
	Lucia Osborne-Crowley	The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell	Finalist	[39]
	Bonny Cassidy	Monument	Finalist	[39]
	Clare Wright	Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy	Finalist	[39]
	Cassandra Pybus	A Very Secret Trade	Finalist	[39]