Debra Dank | |
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Alma mater | Deakin University |
Notable works | We Come With This Place |
Notable awards | New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards
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Debra Dank is an Australian writer who won an unprecedented four prizes at the 2023 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.
Dank is a Gudanji woman who completed a Master of Education[1] and graduated with a PhD in narrative theory and semiotics at Deakin University in 2021.[2]
Dank adapted her award-winning book, We Come With this Place, from work towards her PhD thesis.[3][4] She was encouraged by her supervisor to shape the book without chapters to allow what she described as "nonlinear storying as it exists in my community".[4]
At the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Dank won an unprecedented four awards, the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, the Indigenous Writers' prize and capped it off by winning the overall Book of the Year.[5][6] She also won the ALS Gold Medal in 2023.[7]
Dank's book was included on the 2022 Prime Minister's Summer Reading List, compiled by the Grattan Institute.[8] In 2023 it was shortlisted for the Stella Prize.[9] At the Queensland Literary Awards it won the Nonfiction Book Award[10] and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance and the People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award.[11] It was also shortlisted for the Nonfiction Award at the 2023 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.[12]
An extract from We Come With This Place was included in a 2023 NSW Higher School Certificate examination.[13]
As of May 2023[update], Dank is a lecturer in Indigenous studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast.[3]