Cover Image: A selection of past Hungerford Award–winning and shortlisted titles, showcasing the diverse voices the prize has championed over 35 years. Photo supplied.

When Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes received the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, he brought a story stretching from the highland churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia, to the lecture halls of Curtin University in Perth. His manuscript, Trials of Hope (የተስፋፌተና), is a rare dual-language memoir in English and Amharic, weaving poetry, prose, and Ethiopian philosophy’s four elemental stages of existence: wind, fire, water, and soil. It is an extraordinary debut, but the Hungerford Award has always had an eye for the extraordinary.

Now published by Fremantle Press, Trials of Hope arrives as the Hungerford opens for another round of entries and marks a significant milestone: in 2026, the biennial prize celebrates 35 years of discovering unpublished Western Australian writers, offering a $15,000 cash prize, a publishing contract, and a writing fellowship at the Centre for Stories.

Named for T.A.G. Hungerford – the beloved Western Australian writer, war veteran, and Patrick White Award recipient – the award was established in 1988 to discover and develop new writers from Western Australia who had never been published in book form. Hungerford was a great supporter of emerging writers and was proud to have the award bear his name until his death in 2011.

What makes the Hungerford distinctive, beyond its focus on debut authors, is how consistently its winners have gone on to build major literary careers. The roll call of alumni reads like a who’s who of contemporary Australian literature, with two names in particular illustrating just how far the Hungerford can take a writer.

Gail Jones won the Hungerford in 1991 for The House of Breathing, a short story collection that went on to win the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for Fiction. It was the beginning of one of the most distinguished literary careers in the country. Over three decades, Jones published ten novels – including Sixty Lights, Dreams of Speaking, Sorry, Five Bells, and A Guide to Berlin – earning three Miles Franklin Award shortlistings, a Man Booker Prize longlisting, two Orange Prize longlistings, the Prime Minister’s Prize for Fiction, the ALS Gold Medal, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, and the Age Book of the Year Award. Her work has been translated into 15 languages and is taught at universities worldwide. In 2024, Creative Australia honoured Jones with its Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award, and she was inducted into the Western Australian Writers Hall of Fame. Her extraordinary career began with the Hungerford.

Kim Scott’s trajectory is equally remarkable. A Noongar writer from Western Australia, Scott was shortlisted for the Hungerford early in his career. His first novel, True Country, was published in 1993. His second, Benang: From the Heart, won the Miles Franklin Award in 2000, making him the first Indigenous writer to take Australia’s most prestigious literary prize. He won it again in 2011 for That Deadman Dance, a luminous novel exploring early contact between Noongar people and European settlers. That novel also won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in its region and the Western Australian Premier’s Prize. Scott has since published further acclaimed work, including Taboo, which won the Queensland Literary Award for Fiction and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing. He was appointed Professor of Writing at Curtin University and elected an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Two Miles Franklin wins, multiple Premier’s prizes, international translations, and an academic career dedicated to Noongar language and culture – all from a writer whose early career was nurtured in the Hungerford’s orbit.

Jones and Scott are far from alone. Natasha Lester, who won the Hungerford for her first novel, has since become a New York Times bestselling author of nine books translated into 21 languages. Simone Lazaroo, Brenda Walker, Alice Nelson, Donna Mazza, Holden Sheppard, Maria Papas, and Molly Schmidt are among other alumni who have established themselves as significant voices in Australian writing.

Fremantle Press CEO Alex Allan puts it simply: “This award is vital – providing new writers with community, cash, and a place to continue the important work of putting words on the page. In our 50th year, we’re excited to share the Hungerford’s legacy of identifying and launching the careers of celebrated and award-winning writers”.

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes is a writer, poet, and human-rights academic – the Director of the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University. He grew up in Lalibela, famous for its ancient rock-hewn churches, and his creative and scholarly work revolves around African traditions, Ethiopian philosophy, epistemic justice, and the politics of language and belonging.

Trials of Hope is structured around the Ethiopian belief in four elemental stages of life. “Childhood is seen as wind, young adulthood as fire, mature adulthood as water, and elderly as soil,” Yirga explains. “This is not a simple spiritual belief; it is how the society expects human beings to behave. Viewing childhood as wind, we live in a culture that allows children to be free: to run, play, cry, laugh, and be disruptive and loud.” The book traces his journey from wind, through fire, and into water – from a childhood herding sheep in Ethiopia’s highlands to academic life in Australia, where he has experienced both the warmth of literary community and the sharp edges of racism.

The memoir is a dual-language work, with Amharic poetry alongside English prose. For Yirga, using both languages was a necessity: “My book is rooted in how I grew up. I came to experience and know the world using the Amharic language. This language is inseparable from my memory. When I think of the past in my hometown Lalibela, the images in my mind have Amharic words that are infused with emotions.” His Amharic poems were written across decades using Ethiopia’s indigenous script, Ge’ez Fidel, while the English prose was composed over two years.

Fremantle Press embraced this bilingual vision. Yirga singles out publisher Georgia Richter for her support: “We even went to the extent of getting Amharic and Ge’ez language scholars to provide proof-reading of the Amharic and Ge’ez in text.” An audio recording, accessible via QR code, accompanies the published book – allowing readers to hear the poetry as it was meant to sound.

For Yirga, winning the Hungerford changed how he viewed the publishing industry: “It changed how I viewed the writing community and the industry in general, as being more open for possibilities than I previously thought. I never doubted the genuine significance of the content of my work, as it emerged from real lived experience and research, but I had doubts if it would be valued and ranked highly by the judges and the publishers. I’m now seeing that there are publishers who are open to alternative, dual-language stories, and I think Australia’s literary landscape will be better off if more diverse stories get a platform”.

The addition of the Centre for Stories Fellowship to the prize package has made the Hungerford even more significant for winners. As Yirga points out, many people assume that winning means your book goes straight to print. “This is not the case! The Fellowship acknowledges that winning the prize is just the beginning, and that a writer still needs paid time to get that book to print.” The fellowship provided flexibility around his academic obligations at Curtin, giving him the time and support needed to work through the editing process with Fremantle Press.

It is this combination of financial support, publishing expertise, and community that makes the Hungerford unique. The award is judged anonymously, without regard to background, age, identity, or ability – a fact that Yirga sees as crucial for diversity. “The prize focuses on WA writers who are at the start of their careers, excluding writers who already have a foot in the door,” he says. “Publishing, we must remember, is a business, and sometimes publishers will pass on brilliant stories because they deem them not to be ‘marketable’. Big names are often prioritised. The Hungerford, on the other hand, is open only to new names, and has a track record of being awarded to a diverse range of stories and voices”.

Entries for the 2026 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award opened on 6 February and close at midnight AWST on Sunday 15 March 2026. The award is open to unpublished works of adult fiction, young adult fiction, narrative non-fiction, or verse novel by a debut Western Australian writer. This year’s judging panel comprises Chemutai Glasheen, Marcella Polain, Richard Rossiter, and Fremantle Press publishers Georgia Richter and Cate Sutherland. The winner will be announced at a special event in October 2026.

For anyone on the fence about submitting, Yirga’s advice is warm and direct: “I was the unlikely candidate in my view. I tried and won. You could too. But also remember that if you don’t win, your work hasn’t failed. I had submitted my manuscript to different publishers and competitions a few times, and many of them did not even respond to me. Try endlessly without feeling low when you are rejected. Know your story’s worth outside the system”.

The Hungerford Award is sponsored by Fremantle Press, the City of Fremantle, and the Centre for Stories. Winners receive a $15,000 cash prize, a publishing contract, and a writing fellowship.

For full terms and conditions, or to browse books by previous winners, visit https://fremantlepress.com.au/submissions/hungerford/