Boonwurrung actor-turned-author Tasma Walton is one of the joint winners of this year’s $100,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize.
Walton shares the award with acclaimed author Robbie Arnott. Each will receive $50,000.
Her win marks a significant moment in reclaiming and sharing the stories of her ancestors.
"My greatest hope in telling this story was for my ancestor’s life and what she endured, along with the lives of the Aboriginal women and children condemned to a similar fate, to be more than just casual footnotes in a colonists’ journal," Walton told NITV.
"To receive this incredibly generous prize from the ARA Group and HNSA is deeply meaningful in its acknowledgement of their story and recognition of their deserved place in the fuller picture of our national history.”
The prize, run by the Historical Novel Society Australasia, recognises novels where most of the story is set more than 50 years ago.
Judges described the decision as particularly difficult, saying it was "impossible to elevate one [book] above the other."
Walton’s winning novel, I Am Nannertgarrook, tells the story of her ancestor, Nannertgarrook, a Boonwurrung woman kidnapped by a seal trader in the 1830s and sold into slavery.
The book blends historical research with Indigenous storytelling, reclaiming voices erased from colonial records.
Growing up, Walton heard a romanticised version of her ancestor’s story, in which Nannertgarrook ran off with a merchant seaman.
The reality, she discovered through careful research, was far more brutal: Nannertgarrook was torn from her family in Port Phillip Bay (Nerrm) and forced into servitude.
Walton says writing the book was both confronting and necessary.
She draws on family stories, historical records, and guidance from Elders to honour her ancestor’s life while challenging the colonial narratives that have dominated Australian history for centuries.
Walton’s win underscores the power of Indigenous storytelling to challenge colonial perspectives and ensure voices silenced in history are finally heard.
