Winner of the 2024 Island Nonfiction Prize

We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2024 Island Nonfiction Prize is Cherry Zheng for ‘Fucking with Chineseness’. Cherry wins $3000, publication in Island 171, and an Island subscription.

Cherry (she/they) is a writer of Cantonese heritage. She was a university medallist at the ANU and a New Colombo Plan Scholar in Beijing, Taipei and Singapore. Cherry recently completed the StoryCasters 2.0 mentorship and has appeared in Overland and the BSFA’s Fission science fiction anthology (forthcoming). A member of Worship Queer Collective and ANTRA, they pole dance under the stage name Cherry Chopstick.

The prize was judged 'blind' by Island's Nonfiction Editor, Keely Jobe, along with Erin Riley and Daniel Nour. Keely said of the winner: 

 ‘We had such a strong shortlist this year that choosing a winner was always going to be tough. Each piece is so different and offers something entirely unique for the reader. In the end, we unanimously landed on Cherry Zheng's Fucking with Chineseness. In this piece, Zheng challenges us to understand cultural belonging in new ways, subverting the paradigm of the 'good migrant' with wry humour and a touching longing to understand and be understood. The voice is whip-smart, conflicted, and unlike anything we had read before. We're thrilled to award the prize to this exciting new piece of nonfiction. Congratulations Cherry!’

The winner and shortlisted essays will be published in Island 171, out next month. You can pre-order your copy now, or subscribe.

Our thanks to everyone who entered this year's prize, our wonderful hardworking judges, and a special thanks to the Copyright Agency's Cultural Fund for supporting this prize.