Novel formula for interrupted tale claims Stella Prize

The Sri Lankan-born Sydney author has been shortlisted three times, including for the very first Stella awarded in 2013, and has even judged the awards.

Now her latest work of fiction, Theory & Practice, has finally won the $60,000 prize for Australian women and non-binary writers, announced  Friday at the Sydney Writers Festival.

"I thought this would be another shortlisting at best ... so it was just thrilling and incredible, and I've felt very lucky," she said ahead of the official announcement.

"Theory & Practice is an exceptional novel of hyper realism in which Michelle de Kretser, an author at the height of her powers, interrogates the messiness of life found in the gap between theory and practice," said chair of the judging panel Astrid Edwards.

Theory & Practice begins with the tale of an Australian geologist in Switzerland, but is interrupted by what appears to be the author, aged in her twenties - declaring that she no longer wants to write novels that read like novels.

The life and thoughts of this young woman take over, including her complicated relationship with literary hero Virginia Woolf - the "Woolfmother".

There are sections on the pioneering English author, including investigating her anti-Semitism, and de Kretser declares these parts are as accurate as she could make them.

But the characters and events of Theory & Practice are entirely fictitious.

Adding to the trickery, one edition of the book has a snap of de Kretser as a student on the front cover, taken in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda.

"I wanted to write this novel that would make people think, 'Is this memoir? Is this all non-fiction?' But it's not, it's actually fiction that doesn't read like fiction," she said.

Unlike her protagonist, de Kretser never studied Woolf at university, but reading about Woolf's late novel The Years, she found the English author had attempted to alternate story and essay.

Woolf eventually ditched the idea, but for de Kretser it provided the scaffolding for an innovative structure.

"The fiction, non-fiction thing didn't work for Virginia Woolf, I don't think it's going to work for me! So I will just try and do more of a mix," she said.

Theory & Practice also investigates the pervasive tension between the work that artists leave behind, and their lives and political views.

From Pablo Picasso to George Orwell, Paul Gauguin and Donald Friend, there's a long list of artists who would be cancelled - or jailed - if they were they alive today.

So how to judge our literary heroes when we discover they have feet of clay? Openness is a start, according to de Kretser.

"No one is perfect, but we acknowledge that people have done or said or written certain things that we find unacceptable, and that can be very hurtful," she said.

At least the field of potential literary heroes has widened since Woolf's era - thanks in part to her own theory and practice, and thanks also to initiatives such as the Stella Prize.

There were 180 entries for the 2025 Stella, and for the first time in the award's 13 years, the shortlist featured only women of colour.

The Stella has made a difference to the book industry broadly, said de Kretser.

"There has been much greater awareness of reviewing books by women, and greater awareness of gender issues on prize shortlists," she said.

Australian Associated Press