This year's Stella Prize longlist has been whittled down to six books all of which deal powerfully with women's issues, be it racism, violence against women or mortality.
The shortlist celebrates books that combine "extraordinary literary accomplishment with the social and familial reverberations of some of the most significant issues of our time", according to academic and novelist Brenda Walker, chair of the prize's judging panel.
The selected works, from which a winner will be named, are: Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain (Scribe Publications), The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke (Hachette), Poum and Alexandre by Catherine de Saint Phalle (Transit Lounge), An Isolated Incident by Emily Maguire (Pan Macmillan), The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose (Allen & Unwin) and Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor (Text Publishing).
Both Blain, listed for her final novel for which she won the Victorian Premier's Award for fiction, and Taylor, for Dying, completed their books before their death.
The Stella Prize is worth $50,000 to the winner and is open to fiction and non fiction books.
In 2017 the award marks its fifth year celebrating Australian women's contribution to literature. The Stella Prize was awarded for the first time in 2013 to Carrie Tiffany for Mateship with Birds.
Past Stella winners have since included Clare Wright's Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, Emily Bitto's The Strays and Charlotte Wood's The Natural Way of Things.
All the shortlisted authors will this year receive $3000 and a writing retreat. This year's winner will be announced in Melbourne on April 18.
