Lee Lai has won the 2026 Stella Prize for her graphic novel Cannon, taking home $60,000 in prize money. It is the first time a graphic novel has ever won the prestigious award.
While thrilled with the news, Lai – who is trans – says she’s grappling with a feeling common to many young authors: “The imposter syndrome is high.”
Cannon follows a young woman, Lucy – nicknamed Cannon for “Loose Cannon”, which she definitely is not – through her struggles as a socially awkward, queer, second-generation immigrant.
Lai’s writing tends to begin with a “central question that I’m grappling with in my own life” and this, her second book, explores the longevity of platonic friendships. There’s a narrative that romantic relationships break up but that friendships last forever, she says. “They’re actually so fragile, many things can affect them, and [they’re] also incredibly valuable and precious,” she says.
While an admirer of memoir, Lai says it’s not a form for her. “[In Cannon], the facts are entirely fiction and the emotional experiences the autobiographical part,” she says.
The Stella Prize is open to books by Australian women and non-binary writers, established in 2013 to address the lack of women recognised by literary awards in this country. In 2017, the eligibility was widened to include female-identifying authors.
Finalists for this year’s Stella include The Rot by Evelyn Araluen (poetry); Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (non-fiction/memoir); Fireweather by Miranda Darling (fiction); 58 Facets: On violence and the law by Marika Sosnowski (non-fiction); and I Am Nannertgarrook by Tasma Walton (fiction); each receives $5000 in prize money.
The judges for 2026 were Sophie Gee (chair), Jaclyn Crupi, Benjamin Law, Gillian O’Shaughnessy and Ellen van Neerven.
Previous winners include Michelle de Kretser for Theory & Practice, Alexis Wright for Praiseworthy and Sarah Holland-Batt for The Jaguar.
Shortlisted for the Stella in 2022 for her first book, Stone Fruit, Lai has won an Ignatz Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the American Library Association Awards and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Based in Montreal, the 33-year-old grew up in Melbourne and her next book is set in Australia.
Does she care whether her books are called graphic novels or comics? The straight answer is no, but “I go out of my way sometimes to say comics because it’s a bit more irreverent”, she says.
“The comics scene in Canada and North America more generally is really thriving and so it’s a lot more possible for me as a professional to stay there. I also found a really vibrant, wonderful community who gave me – and still give me – a lot of reasons to stay.”
Reviewing the Stella Prize-winning book for this masthead last year, writer Declan Fry said: “Cannon’s melancholy, its quiet sense of precise observation, is leavened by keen humour and intelligence. This is a thoughtful, deliberative work, and one of the best graphic novels I have read this year.”
Working in a pressure-cooker restaurant kitchen, looking after her ailing grandfather and finding her friend Trish self-obsessed and unsupportive, Cannon struggles with her mental health.
She uses mindfulness to push away overwhelming thoughts – including the haunting birds that follow her everywhere. While understanding the weight she carries, she doesn’t give voice to her fear and anger, which catches up with her, as does channelling her emotional energies into running.
Global events have impacted on her world view in the past few years, Lai says, citing “the pandemic and a resurgence of Black Lives Matter and an ongoing genocide”, in reference to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has killed and injured tens of thousands of Palestinian people, in response to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
“These things have really marked me as a person, and a creative, and have changed my understanding of what success is and what is important.
“[Cannon] is meant to be a portrait of rage and that is something both emotionally and politically I have been learning about the value of for the past many years and continue to be in awe of as a notion … particularly for women.”
With Darcey Thompson
Lee Lai is speaking in Brisbane for the Stella Prize on May 14, at the Melbourne Art Book Fair on May 16 and RMIT x Stella Prize on May 18, and at Sydney Writers Festival on May 21.
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