Artist, writer and educator Safdar Ahmed has won Book of the Year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards on Monday night for his powerful graphic novel Still Alive: Notes from Australia's Immigration Detention System.
Described by the judges as a work of "vision, ambition and achievement", Still Alive was awarded Book of the Year ($10,000) and the Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000).
"Ahmed's work stands out as an example of brilliant storytelling created with and through community, a labour of generosity, and love. It is an unflinching critique of policy and discourse that demonstrates the power of art," the judges said.
Still Alive was expanded from Ahmed's 2015 Walkley-winning documentary web-comic, which was made with the assistance of activist organisation GetUp!
Ahmed has lived with the chronic inflammatory condition Crohn's disease for the past 10 years, during which time he has been supported by his mother.
"I think I'll give [the prize money] to her as a small way of thanking her for all the years she's helped me out," he told ABC Arts.
This year's Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000) was awarded to Tony Birch for his latest short story collection, Dark as Last Night.
Accepting his award at the State Library of NSW ceremony, Birch noted that he got his first library card 60 years ago.
Other winners on the night included Kate Holden, who won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction ($40,000) for The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek; and Shaun Grant, who won the Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000) for his screenplay for Australian film NITRAM.
Katherine Brabon won the publicly voted People's Choice Award for her second novel The Shut Ins, which dives into the life of a hikikomori (a person who avoids social contact).
Scroll down for full list of award-winners
The responsibility of storytelling
Ahmed's Still Alive combines journalism, memoir, the aesthetic conventions of underground comics and the horror genre to share the stories of asylum seekers detained in Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and in offshore detention on Nauru and Manus Island.
It also includes a potted history of Australia's refugee policy since the 1990s, under both Labor and Liberal governments.
His book was written over six years but is the culmination of 10 years of volunteering with the Refugee Art Project, a community art organisation that Ahmed co-founded in 2010.
The not-for-profit invites refugees to tell their own stories through drawing and painting, with some of the work going on to feature in exhibitions, journals and 'zines.
"In a restrictive environment like Villawood where, at the time, there were no cameras and no mobile phones with recording capability, [and] no journalists allowed to go in there, [making art] felt like the best way to record what was going on," Ahmed says.
Still Alive also examines how art can be healing and cathartic, and give people a sense of agency.
"Art and storytelling allow trauma to be visualised, externalised, and re-embedded in its context, which provides greater feelings of safety and distance from it over time. In this sense art can help us process our experiences on some level to provide a new sense of control over our story and how it should be told," Ahmed writes.
Writing Still Alive, Ahmed wrestled with whether he should insert himself into the narrative.
Initially, he says, he thought, "No, this book isn't about me. And the narrative and the emotional gist of it should be conveyed very strongly through other people's narratives."
But he soon realised that he needed to depict himself as well.
"Refugee Art Project was about using art to form community and to enable friendships and to help people process things in their own way and on their own terms," he explains.
Ahmed writes in Still Alive about how art was a useful tool for processing his emotions when he lived with chronic depression: "Art has helped me understand something about my relationship to the world."
He was inspired to create Still Alive by the graphic journalism of Maltese American cartoonist Joe Sacco (Palestine), which engages critically with the subjectivity of its author.
"That self-reflective element allowed me to ask broader questions about my own attitudes, my role in that environment [and] how refugees are perceived, [in order] to deal with those broader discourses," he says.
In Still Alive, he writes:
"I find it hard to draw myself into this comic … it tackles life and death issues, which are bigger than my solipsistic art. Through the lottery of birth I've had a life of privilege, so I might not be the best person to record these stories. But as an Australian citizen aren't I implicated in the abuses of my government?"
He addresses ethical concerns about telling vulnerable people's stories by reproducing the work of refugees in detention, from the Refugee Art Project, with their permission and input.
The power and popularity of the graphic novel
Still Alive is the second graphic novel to win Book of the Year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, after Shaun Tan won in 2007 for The Arrival.
While graphic novels are popular in countries such as Japan, France and the United States, interest in the form has also increased in Australia over the past 15 years — with independent publishers such as Twelve Panels Press, which published Still Alive, showcasing the work of Australian creatives.
"The market is always growing in the sense that, I think, graphic novels are becoming more appreciated, particularly by young people," Ahmed explains.
He loves graphic novels because they bring together his interests in visual art and writing.
"I like to think of it as combining the logical, rational side of my brain, which is interested in telling stories and explaining causes and effects, with the intuitive, mystical side of me, which is more drawn to imagery and evocative visuals," he says.
As a form, graphic novels are also uniquely suited to telling stories that are intended to spark change. Ahmed explains that cartooning has its origins in political protest and mocking people with power and privilege.
"For me, the power of graphic novels is that they belong in a tradition of subversive art … I see it as a form which is very well-tailored to creating work which is complex and rich, but also very critical."
Ahmed says he always hoped the book would find its way into the hands of young people and, since it was published, he has heard from many educators — including teachers and librarians — about Still Alive reaching that audience.
"I wanted young people to be educated and inspired by it," he says.
An often-overlooked form
This year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards has acknowledged another often-overlooked form: the short story.
The last time a short story collection won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction was in 2005 (Tim Winton's The Turning).
To see short stories attract this level of attention is particularly validating for author, activist and historian Tony Birch, who has devoted much of his career to the form.
While one of his major successes was a novel, The White Girl (which won the Indigenous Writers' Award at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards in 2020), he has published five short story collections, including Dark as Last Night.
"I really love writing short fiction, so to have a short story collection win a general fiction prize, I really am very happy about that."
Dark as Last Night is a collection of 16 vivid short stories about "people on the margins".
The stories traverse childhood experiences and family connections, as well as issues of domestic abuse, racism and grief.
One describes a brother and sister packing up their late brother's housing commission flat. In another, a boy teaches his little brother how to ride a bike before he defends him against a gang of thieves. In another, teenagers in '70s Melbourne connect over the music of David Bowie.
The collection was described by the award judges as "captivating": "[The stories] rub at the seams and scars of contemporary life and carry us, along with their flawed but ultimately lovable characters, into bright hope, humour and appreciation."
For Birch, it takes more concentration to write a short story collection than a novel, as it involves inhabiting many different characters, as well as crafting the stories into a cohesive whole.
"I don't think it's harder or easier work, it's just a different form — and I think people should stop seeing short stories as an apprenticeship to move on to a novel," he says.
Birch's younger brother, Wayne, died suddenly three years ago. Three stories in the collection are dedicated to him and draw upon Birch's experience of loss.
Readers who have identified with his writing about grief approached him at writers' festivals to talk about their own experiences.
"I'm quite happy, obviously, for people to interpret the story any way they like and [to] relate it to any experience they like, as long as I feel that I've made a connection with a reader," he says.
"For me, that's the only reason to write: to make a connection with readers."
Full list of winners
Book of the Year ($10,000)
Still Alive: Notes from Australia's Immigration Detention System by Safdar Ahmed (Twelve Panels Press)
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)
Dark as Last Night by Tony Birch (University of Queensland Press)
UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000)
Hold Your Fire by Chloe Wilson (Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Australia)
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction ($40,000)
The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek by Kate Holden (Black Inc. Books)
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)
accelerations & inertias by Dan Disney (Vagabond Press)
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ($30,000)
My Brother Ben by Peter Carnavas (University of Queensland Press)
Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature ($30,000)
The Gaps by Leanne Hall (Text Publishing)
Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)
Orange Thrower by Kirsty Marillier (Griffin Theatre Company and National Theatre of Parramatta/Currency Press)
Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)
NITRAM by Shaun Grant (Good Thing Productions)
Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)
Still Alive: Notes from Australia's Immigration Detention System by Safdar Ahmed (Twelve Panels Press)
Indigenous Writers' Prize ($30,000) – biennial award
Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams by Anita Heiss (Simon & Schuster Australia)
People's Choice Award
The Shut Ins by Katherine Brabon (Allen & Unwin)
