PM announces literary award winners

A story about the hidden tensions in one of Australia's establishment families and another about two women kidnapped and imprisoned on a broken down property are the joint fiction winners of the prime minister's literary awards.

Announcing the winners at the National Library on Tuesday night, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said winning and shortlisted authors had continued Australia's rich literary tradition.

They should be enthusiastically congratulated for their contribution to the literary arts, he said.

The winners are:

* Fiction: Joint winners The Life of Houses, Lisa Gorton (Giramondo), The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood (Allen & Unwin).

* Poetry: The Hazards, Sarah Holland-Batt (University of Queensland Press)

* Non-fiction: Joint winners On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics, Sheila Fitzpatrick (Melbourne University Press), Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather, Karen Lamb (University of Queensland Press).

* Australian history: Joint winners The Story of Australia's People, Geoffrey Blainey AC (Penguin), Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and the Soviet Jews 1959-89, Sam Lipski and Suzanne D Rutland (Hybrid Publishers)

* Childrens: Sister Heart, Sally Morgan (Fremantle Press).

* Young adult: A Single Stone, Meg McKinlay (Walker Books Australia).