The New Boy

Judges' comments

Warwick Thornton has created an original and subversive take on the impact of colonial assimilation. This visionary story is set in a 1940s world where a mysterious New Boy finds himself captured and brought into the rhythms of monastery life where an equally mysterious secret is being hidden by the nuns.

This is a magical script whose visual imagery is laden in metaphorically poetic shafts and whose meaning often lies below the surface — not quite visible, but deeply felt. The dialogue is sparse, with the protagonist, New Boy, uttering only a handful of words. Even the other characters are not dialogue reliant. Instead, their actions or inactions reveal much about the wake of their choices and determinations within the world they have found themselves. Refusing to spoon feed his reader, Thornton instead creates space for the potential meanings to resonate long after the last page.