Respected Australian author wins top book prize

This from The Australian last weekend, somehow I missed it. Apologies to the author.

EXPATRIATE Geraldine Brooks has won the Australian Book of the Year award for a novel that explores the tortured history of Jews, Christians and Muslims involved in the preservation of a real medieval Jewish book, the Sarajevo Haggadah.
The win by Brooks's People of the Book at the Australian Book Industry Awards in Melbourne last night came as her sister, Darleen Bungey, won the biography prize for Arthur Boyd: a Life.

Publishers and booksellers voted in a crop of winners dominated by memoirs, cross-culture, food and the ever popular fantasy.

Sydney chef Pauline Nguyen was named newcomer of the year for Secrets of the Red Lantern, an emotional memoir of her family's flight from Vietnam and adjusting to life in Sydney's Cabramatta, including the recipes that link them together.

The full report, including other awards, from The Australian online.