Australian Independent Booksellers are thrilled to announce The Dry by Jane Harper as their favourite Australian book from last year and the winner of The Indie Book Awards 2017 Book of the Year.
The individual category winners in Fiction, Non-fiction, Debut Fiction, Children’s and Young Adult were also announced. From these five category winners, the independent booksellers selected the best of the best – The 2017 Indie Book of the Year.
The Indie Book Awards as chosen by independent booksellers, members of Leading Edge Books, reward and promote excellence in Australian writing.
Affectionately termed ‘indies’, Australian independent booksellers have a proud reputation for choosing the best in Australian writing, with many of the winners going on to be bestsellers and win other major literary awards. Since its inception in 2008, the Indie Book Awards have chosen Breath by Tim Winton, The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do, Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey, All That I Am by Anna Funder, The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, The Bush by Don Watson and The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood as previous overall winners.
Upon the announcement, Jane Harper said, “I am absolutely thrilled that The Dry has been named as Indie Book of the Year. Independent booksellers have championed the novel from the very start and thousands of readers have discovered The Dry thanks to their passionate hand-selling and personal recommendations. It is an honour to have been selected for this award by people who know readers so well, and I remain so grateful and touched by the enthusiasm and support independent booksellers have shown both for The Dry and Australian fiction in general.”
According to Galina Marinov, National Group Manager, Leading Edge Books, “We are hugely excited to announce The Dry by Jane Harper as the 2017 Book of the Year. From the moment the early proof editions landed on our desks we knew we had a very special book on our hands, a book independents can truly get behind: a literary crime thriller with profound and truly Australian sense of landscape and characters. A gripping and compulsively readable debut. Beautifully written, commercially successful and quintessentially Australian. A book any Australian independent bookseller can wholeheartedly recommend to their customers.
The Indie Book Awards 2017 Category Award winners are:
FICTION The Last Painting by Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith (Allen & Unwin)
NON-FICTION Everywhere I Look by Helen Garner (Text Publishing)
DEBUT FICTION The Dry by Jane Harper (Pan Macmillan)
CHILDREN’S Circle by Jeannie Baker (Walker Books)
YOUNG ADULT’S Words in Deep Water by Cath Crowley (Pan Macmillan)
The Indie Book Awards would like to gratefully acknowledge the 2017 Awards Sponsors: HarperCollins Australia as the Book of the Year sponsor and category sponsors: Pan Macmillan Australia, Hardie Grant Books, Hachette Australia, Bonnier Publishing Australia, Hardie Grant Egmont and also Awards partners: Simon & Schuster and Layout Works.
Thanks to our sponsors, each category winner will receive $1000, with additional $2000 sponsored by HarperCollins Australia going to the Book of the Year winner.
The Indie Book Awards are proudly co-ordinated by Leading Edge Books.