Touch Grass by Mary Colussi wins Penguin Literary Prize 2025

17 June 2025

Sydney based Australian writer Mary Colussi has been named winner of the 2025 Penguin Literary Prize, with her manuscript Touch Grass. Going by this brief outline of the story, Touch Grass sounds like a work of speculative fiction:

Touch Grass tells the story of a depressed deletion specialist as she starts to leave her body at unexpected moments and finds herself at the surreal centre of a global panic.

Awarded annually, the Penguin Literary Prize was established in 2017 “to discover, nurture and develop literary fiction writers, providing a platform for new and diverse voices to emerge.”

Melbourne journalist and writer Chloe Adams (Instagram page) won the 2024 award, with the manuscript for her novel The Occupation, which will be published next month.

We’ll probably have to wait on a little while before learning more about the synopsis of Touch Grass.

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Australian literature, fiction, literary awards, literature, manuscripts, Mary Colussi