In a staggering volte face, the judges have awarded a first time author (although has written a play) and someone who didn’t spend $40,000 on HECS fees on a creative writing course, Australian Book of the Year.

Finding herself stuck at home without a job during lockdown, Diana Reid, 26, wrote a book in five months. She didn’t think her novel, Love and Virtue, would ever be published, but it won book of the year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.

The book is a darkly comic campus story exploring sex, power, and consent, through the eyes of two women in their first year at university in Sydney.

Critics have predicted it will become an Australian classic, but Ms Reid said her novel may simply be timely.

“We’ve seen just how keen the public is to have a conversation about consent, and we’ve had so many amazing activists who have brought those issues to the forefront,” she said.

Ms Reid has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Law from Sydney University.

Former AFL footballer Adam Goodes took out the children’s picture book category with Somebody’s Land: Welcome to Our Country, co-written by Ellie Laing and illustrated by David Hardy.

The book is an introduction to first nations history and the idea of ‘terra nullius’ for a young audience.