I am so thrilled that two Upswell authors–Abbas El-Zein and Dominic Gordon–have been shortlisted in this year’s awards. You can read all about the awards and the shortlistings here: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/nsw-literary-awards

Dominic Gordon

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing

2025 Shortlisted

Judges’ Comments

Presented as a book of ‘essays on risk’, Excitable Boy tells the story of the author as a boy who becomes a young man and a petty criminal — largely for the thrill of it — in the rougher parts of Melbourne at the turn of the twenty-first century. The essays, arranged in no obvious chronological order, are drawn together by the distinctive energy of the main character and his frank, vivid, highly intelligent sense of self.

Excitable Boy is a literary experiment, a multilayered self-portrait drawn in spare and limpid style, engaging the reader in a confidential recollection of misspent youth. The author speaks as the ventriloquist of his younger self and without retrospective moral judgment. Beautifully sustained, it is a flawless performance.

Abbas El-Zein

Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction

2025 Shortlisted

Judges’ Comments

Abbas El-Zein’s memoir guides the reader through 1970s Beirut and beyond, spanning the outbreak of civil war through to September 11, the Arab Spring, the Beirut port explosions and the COVID-19 pandemic. Through conflict, tragedy and invasion, El-Zein tenderly holds the rhythms of everyday life at the centre of his narrative — from the growing pains of youth and the heat of infatuation to the tumult of migration. Using a series of vignettes that are by turns devastating, witty and deeply moving, El-Zein explores how growing up speaking French, Arabic and English can shape a family and culture. 

From unpacking the Arabic lexicon of love — which has from 50 to 100 expressions ‘for different shades of love, affection and love-induced states of mind’ — to debating whether achieving ‘Gallic sophistication’ in his high school French classes will make him a ‘linguistic sell-out’, El-Zein’s writing is a dazzling combination of precision and playfulness. Bullet, Paper, Rock is a work that shimmers, shapeshifts and beckons the reader to follow.

Abbas El-Zein

Abbas El-Zein has published essays and articles on war and violence, identity and displacement. His work has appeared in HEAT Magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin and Australian Book Review, among others. His novel, Tell the Running Water, is a coming-of-age story set in civil-war Beirut. His memoir, Leave to Remain, is an autobiographical meditation on war, identity and East-West relations. The Secret Maker of the World is a collection of short stories about violence, justice and loss, set in different continents and eras. His latest book, Bullet, Paper, Rock – A Memoir of Words and Wars, published on 3 April 2024, is a story of survival and a reflection on language and desire, amid the upheavals of war, the Arab Spring and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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