Dr Sarah Krasnostein wins Australia’s biggest literary prize
2 February 2018
Congratulations to Dr Sarah Krasnostein, whose debut novel The Trauma Cleaner has won the top $100,000 prize at the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay and Disaster won two awards: the Victorian Prize for Literature and the $25,000 Prize for Non-Fiction.
Sarah's book tells the true story of Melbourne transgender woman Sandra Pankhurst’s life and career cleaning the scenes of violent crimes.
Sarah completed her PhD in sentencing and criminal procedural law at the Faculty of Law at Monash University in 2016. Her thesis, “Pursuing Consistency: The Effect of Different Reforms on Unjustified Disparity in Individualised Sentencing Frameworks”, won the 2016 Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for Law for best thesis.
It was cited by the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council throughout their report Sentencing Guidance in Victoria (2016) which responded to the Attorney-General’s request for advice on promoting consistency of approach in sentencing and public confidence in the criminal justice system.
In 2017, Sarah taught Principles of Criminal Law and Procedure in the Monash JD program.
Learn more: Dr Sarah Krasnostein tells the story behind The Trauma Cleaner to ABC radio's Life Matters.
Check out the winners and the shortlist here.
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