Laura Jean McKay’s pandemic fiction The Animals in That Country wins Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards’ $100,000 top gong

Victorian author Laura Jean McKay has won the top prize at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards with her debut novel, which imagines a viral pandemic in Australia that gives humans the ability to understand animals.

McKay’s novel The Animals In That Country won Australia’s richest literary prize, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, as well as the $25,000 Fiction Award, announced as part of an online ceremony on Monday night.