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A lost dog and the emotions stirred during its 13-day absence inspired Sri Lankan immigrant Michelle de Kretser to write the novel that took the top honour in the prestigious NSW Premier's Literary awards.
Australia's richest literary awards were unveiled at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney on Monday night, with Ms de Kretser - an international best-selling author - winning Book of the Year and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction for her novel The Lost Dog.
The two awards earned her a total of $50,000 from a prize pool of $290,000 - up from $137,000 last year.
The awards are now the "richest and most prestigious" literary awards in Australia, a spokesman for NSW Arts minister Frank Sartor said.
"I like to think about it (the novel) as an elaborate ghost story where there are these missing people, lost histories, lost parents and lost children - like a multi-layered ghost story," Ms de Kretser told AAP.
Ms de Kretser immigrated...