Tara June Winch (born 2 December 1983) is an Australian writer. She is the 2020 winner of the Miles Franklin Award for her book The Yield.

Biography

Tara June Winch was born in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia on 2 December 1983. Her father is from the Wiradjuri nation in western New South Wales, and she grew up in the coastal area of Woonona within the Wollongong region. She often explores the two geographical places in her fiction. She is based in Australia and France. Her first novel, Swallow the Air (2006), won several Australian literary awards. The judges for The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists award wrote that the book "is distinguished by its natural grace and vivid language" and that "as with many first books it deals with issues of family, growing up and stepping into the world. But it strives to connect these experiences to broader social issues, though never in a didactic fashion". In 2008 the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative supported her mentorship under Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka. The critical reception for her second book, After the Carnage (2016), was positive. A review in The Australian stated that "Winch can pack a punch and break your heart within a few pages" and that "The personal-is-political worldview flexes Winch's considerable literary muscle". Her 2019 novel The Yield won seven national Australian literary awards in 2020, including the Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Awards and nominations

Books

Anthologies

Essays and reporting

Film