Voss Literary Prize Names Five Novels for 2026

Five novels are on the 2026 Voss Literary Prize shortlist. The prize's shortlist page says the judges chose them from 47 titles submitted by publishers. The prize is for the best novel published in Australia in 2025.

The five are Randa Abdel-Fattah, Discipline (University of Queensland Press); Natalia Figueroa Barroso, Hailstones Fell Without Rain (University of Queensland Press); Raaza Jamshed, What Kept You? (Giramondo Publishing Company); Gail Jones, The Name of the Sister (The Text Publishing Company); and Omar Musa, Fierceland (Penguin Books).

Ten books on the longlist

The longlist was also drawn from those 47 submissions, and it names ten books. Beside the five shortlisted novels, it includes Moreno Giovannoni, The Immigrants (Black Inc.); Rachel Morton, The Sun Was Electric Light (University of Queensland Press); Konrad Muller, My Heart at Evening (Evercreech Editions); Josephine Rowe, Little World (Black Inc.); and A Piece of Red Cloth by Leonie Norrington, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawa Burarrwanga, and Djawundil Maymuru (Allen & Unwin).

The shortlist page does not name a winner. It does not give a date for one.

Two books from University of Queensland Press

University of Queensland Press posted on October 23, 2026, to mark Discipline and Hailstones Fell Without Rain. The post calls the Voss a new award in memory of Vivian Robert de Vaux Voss (1930-1963), an historian and lover of literature from Emu Park in Central Queensland. It says he studied History and Latin at the University of Sydney and modern languages at the University of Rome, and that his will called for a literary award for the best novel from the previous year.

The prize's own homepage gives the award's record in a few lines. It says the prize acknowledges the best Australian novel published in the preceding year, and that it was first awarded in 2014, to Fiona McFarlane for The Night Guest. The page names Alexis Wright's Praiseworthy as the 2024 winner and Fiona McFarlane's Highway 13 as the 2025 winner.

Why it matters for authors and publishers

The judges were working from 47 titles submitted by publishers. Ten were named on the longlist, and five of those titles are on the shortlist. Two of the five are from University of Queensland Press, which posted about its two books on October 23. The shortlist notice does not say when a winner will be announced.

Sources

• Voss Literary Prize: Short List 2026
• Voss Literary Prize: Long List 2026
• Voss Literary Prize: homepage, for the prize's history
• University of Queensland Press, October 23, 2026: UQP titles on the shortlist