Indie Book Award Winners 2020

Book of the Year and Winner of Fiction
There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett

Favel Parrett’s deep emotional insight and stellar literary talent shine through in this love letter to the strong women who bind families together, despite dislocation and distance. It is a tender and beautifully told story of memory, family and love. Because there is still love. No matter what.         



Indie Book of the Year Non-Fiction 
Tell Me Why by Archie Roach

In this intimate, moving and often shocking memoir, Archie’s story is an extraordinary odyssey through love and heartbreak, family and community, survival and renewal – and the healing power of music. 




Indie Book of the Year Debut Fiction
Allegra in Three Parts by Suzanne Daniel

Eleven-year-old Allegra shuttles between her grandmothers who live next door to one another but couldn’t be more different. And then there’s Rick who lives in a flat out the back and finds distraction in gambling and solace in surfing. Allegra is left to orbit these three worlds wishing they loved her a little less and liked each other a lot more. Until one day the unspoken tragedy that’s created this division explodes within the person they all cherish most.

Indie Book of the Year Illustrated Non-Fiction
The Lost Boys by Paul Byrnes

This extraordinary book captures the incredible and previously untold stories of forty Anzac boys who fought in the First World War, from Gallipoli to the Armistice. Featuring haunting images of the boys taken at training camps and behind the lines, these tales are both heartbreaking and rousing, full of daring, ingenuity, recklessness, random horror and capricious luck.

Indie Book of the Year Children’s
The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Ugly Animals by Sami Bayly

With more than sixty ugly animals to explore, this compendium of the unusual celebrates the beauty in ‘ugliness’. Children and adults alike will pore over the breathtaking scientific illustrations of unusual animals, debating their relative ugliness and merits, learning about science and nature along the way.

Indie Book of the Year Young Adult
The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim

Anna Chiu has her hands pretty full looking after her brother and sister and helping out at her dad’s restaurant, all while her mum stays in bed. Dad’s new delivery boy, Rory, is a welcome distraction and even though she knows that things aren’t right at home, she’s starting to feel like she could just be a normal teen. But when Mum finally gets out of bed, things go from bad to worse.