Kibble Literary Award

The Kibble Literary Award recognises the work of established women writers in the area of life-writing. Life writing, for the purpose of this award, includes novels, autobiography, biography, travel and other writing with a strong personal element. The award was established in 1994 by Nita May Dobbie, a librarian and writer, in memory of her aunt Nita Kibble (1879-1962), who was the first woman librarian to be appointed to the State Library of New South Wales. The Kibble Award, worth $25,000, is administered by Perpetual Trustees.

Nita Kibble's biography can be found in ADB Online.

2009 winner

 
 Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin, Penguin, 2008

 
2009 shortlisted works

• Georgia Blain, Births, Deaths and Marriages: True Tales (Random House)
• Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin (Penguin)
• Kathleen Stewart, The After Life: A Memoir (Vintage)

previous winners

2008 - Carol Lefevre, Nights in the Asylum
2007 - Deborah Robertson, Careless
2006 - Brenda Walker, The Wing of Night
2005 - Gay Bilson, Plenty
2004 - Fiona Capp, That Oceanic Feeling
2003 - Gail Jones, Black Mirror
2002 - Jacqueline Kent, A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life
2001 - Inga Clendinnen, Tiger's Eye: A Memoir
2000 - Drusilla Modjeska, Stravinsky's Lunch
1999 - Geraldine Brooks, Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey From Down Under to All Over
1998 - Roberta Sykes, Snake Cradle
1997 - Helen Garner, True Stories: Selected Non-Fiction
1996 - Judy Cassab, Judy Cassab: Diaries
1995 - Drusilla Modjeska, The Orchard
1994 - Marion Halligan, Lovers' Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel