Selected from almost 700 entries, The Rot was recognized both as the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Indigenous writing category winner, underscoring Araluen’s standout achievement.

Evelyn Araluen won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize for The Rot, taking home 100,000 AUD, and also claimed the Indigenous Writing prize worth 25,000 AUD, with the work described as a darker, more introspective blend of poetry and prose that probes gender and global imperial capitalism.

The People’s Choice Award went to Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah, amid surrounding controversy over her earlier disinvitation from Adelaide Writers’ Week.

The prizes collectively span eight categories; Araluen urged recognition of the arbitrary nature of prize systems while expressing gratitude and faith that many stories and forms still await telling.

Araluen’s earlier collection Dropbear won the Stella Prize in 2022, making her the youngest Stella Prize recipient at 29 and addressing Australian colonial myths.

Araluen reflected on being heckled for portraying Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, noting the emotional toll and the support from readers who connected with the poems.

She highlighted financial and tax implications of prize winnings, calling for reforms to arts prize taxation to sustain artists’ ongoing work, noting how Stella Prize winnings were heavily taxed and affected by personal finances.

Judges praised The Rot as a work of remarkable poetic intelligence—formally bold, emotionally exacting, and politically uncompromising—drawn from Araluen’s Adelaide Writers’ Week experiences in 2024.

The Rot is described as a bold fusion of poetry and prose about decaying romances, expired hopes, and injustices, addressing imperialism, weapons manufacturing, Gaza, and settler-colonialism.

Other Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards winners include Omar Musa (Fiction for Fierceland), Micaela Sahhar (Non-fiction Find Me at the Jaffa Gate), Eunice Andrada (Poetry KONTRA), Emilie Collyer (Drama Super), Zeno Sworder (Children’s Once I Was a Giant), Margot McGovern (John Marsden Prize for This Stays Between Us), and Charlotte Guest (unpublished manuscript The Kookaburra).