The Kibble Literary Award recognises the work of established women writers in the area of life writing. Life writing, for the purpose of this award, includes novels, autobiography, biography, travel and other writing with a strong personal element. The award was established in 1994 by Nita May Dobbie, a librarian and writer, in memory of her aunt Nita Kibble (1879-1962), who was the first woman librarian to be appointed to the State Library of New South Wales. The Kibble Award, worth $30,000, is administered by Perpetual Trustees.

Nita Kibble's biography can be found in ADB Online.

2016 winner

Fiona Wright, Small Acts of Disappearance (Giramondo)

previous winners

2015 – Joan London, The Golden Age (Vintage)
2014 – Kristina Olsson, Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir (UQP)
2013 – Anna Faulkner, The Beloved (Macmillan)
2012 – Gail Jones, Five Bells (Penguin)
2011 – Brenda Walker, Reading by Moonlight (Hamish Hamilton)
2010 – Shirley Walker, The Ghost at the Wedding (Penguin)
2009 – Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin (Penguin)
2008 – Carol Lefevre, Nights in the Asylum
2007 – Deborah Robertson, Careless
2006 – Brenda Walker, The Wing of Night
2005 – Gay Bilson, Plenty
2004 – Fiona Capp, That Oceanic Feeling
2003 – Gail Jones, Black Mirror
2002 – Jacqueline Kent, A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life
2001 – Inga Clendinnen, Tiger's Eye: A Memoir
2000 – Drusilla Modjeska, Stravinsky's Lunch
1999 – Geraldine Brooks, Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey From Down Under
            to All Over
1998 – Roberta Sykes, Snake Cradle
1997 – Helen Garner, True Stories: Selected Non-Fiction
1996 – Judy Cassab, Judy Cassab: Diaries
1995 – Drusilla Modjeska, The Orchard
1994 – Marion Halligan, Lovers' Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel