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Alumna wins prestigious literary prize

November 10, 2021

Jesse Sutanto (Mst Creative Writing, 2007) has won the 2021 Comedy Women in Print Prize for her novel Dial A for Aunties. In an interview with i, she talks about the award, how she took inspiration from her own Chinese-Indonesian family and the importance of representation in publishing.

Sutanto is the first writer of colour to win the Comedy Women in Print Prize, now in its third year.

Jesse told the reporter, “I keep waiting for CWIP to tell me they’ve made a mistake and could I return the prize, please?” going on to say “I’m so honoured, especially as there were all these amazing books on the long list, many of them written by women of colour. I’m eternally grateful to women of colour who have paved the way for me.”

Jesse is writing a sequel as well as working on a Netflix adaptation of her award-winning novel.

Read the full interview here.