The 2020 Stella Prize, Australia’s most prestigious prize for women’s writing, has gone to investigative reporter Jess Hill for her searing examination into domestic violence in Australia, See What You Made Me Do.
This book, the result of four tireless years of research by Hill and which was also a shortlistee for the 2019 Walkley Book Award, takes a thorough look at the ways in which domestic violence occurs and how perpetrators are able to wield power and control over their victims. It was chosen from a shortlist of six, which included authors Charlotte Wood, Tara June Winch, Josephine Rowe, Favel Parrett and Caro Lewellyn.
Louise Swinn, Chair of the 2020 Stella Judging Panel, said:
“Jess Hill is a journalist whose clarity of expression and thought are of the highest order. What she has done with her incredibly powerful book, See What You Made Me Do, is meticulously dismantle all of the lazy old lies we associate with domestic abuse. In scrutinising both cause and response from every angle, Hill addresses each question head-on – even the most challenging aspects. Using forensic investigation, and highlighting personal stories, this book does much more than draw attention to this crisis – it offers solutions for reform. The statistics are utterly horrifying, and Hill’s extraordinary call to action cannot be ignored.”
The $50,000 prize, sponsored by the Wilson Foundation, was awarded tonight during the 2020 Stella Prize Announcement broadcast – the first time the prize has been awarded digitally. The event was hosted by ABC’s Patricia Karvelas and presented in partnership with The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas and Guardian Live, with an address from The Hon Julia Gillard.
Congratulations Jess!
Jess Hill
Review by Mark Harding
See What You Made Me Do does not make for easy reading, but no book about the horrors of domestic abuse and its consequences ever could. It is, however, an extraordinary book, and with it Jess Hill interrogates everything we thought we knew about domestic violence on a number of levels.
First, Hill challenges the superficial understanding of abuse always meaning violence. Abuse actually covers a vast range of behaviours, many of which would never qualify as “criminal” (gaslighting, for instance), meaning victims of these kinds of abuse have no options for recourse even though these behaviours are often indicators of future violence.
The second thing she challenges is the notion that domestic abuse is just about one partner receiving abuse from another, in isolation. Hill lays out the consequences that abuse has on children, even if they never experience direct abuse themselves, with devastating effect. The stories she relates of children blatantly stating that they don’t want to live with abusive parents, who are then ignored by everyone, are harrowing and confronting.
Also challenged is the faith we have in the family court and justice system. Hill shares in chilling detail the efforts that have been made to undermine victims, to the point that the system now regularly places children with abusive guardians. To see that there are currently activists and politicians engaged in efforts to make things even harder for victims is infuriating to say the least.
And it’s hard not to walk away from this book feeling angry. The situation is dire. Domestic abuse is an epidemic in our community, our responses haven’t been enough and the system is regularly failing. However, the ultimate message here is that real change is possible. The way we think about abuse and frame it needs to change, so instead of asking why victims stay, Jess Hill encourages us to ask why perpetrators abuse.
See What You Made Me Do is a worthy winner of the Stella Prize, a book that will not only stick with you, but bring you to a greater understanding of this issue.
See What You Made Me Do
Women are abused or killed by their partners at astonishing rates- in Australia, almost 17 per cent of women over the age of fifteen - one in six - have been abused by an intimate partner.
In this confronting and deeply researched account, journalist Jess Hill uncovers the ways in which abusers exert control in the darkest - and most intimate - ways imaginable. She asks- What do we know about perpetrators? Why is it so hard to leave? What does successful intervention look like?...
Read an extract from See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill 
Announcing the 2020 Stella Prize shortlist! 
See the 2020 Stella Prize longlist!
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