The 55-year-old, who’s best known for her role as Sharon Strzelecki in hit comedy Kath and Kim, also won the prize for Biography of the Year for Reckoning: A Memoir.
The best-seller tells of Magda’s relationship with her father, a teenage assassin during World War II, and also delves into her journey into homosexuality.
“I’ve loved writing this book more than anything I’ve done in my life,” she says. “I love book world people – they’re not there for the money but they are intelligent and they really care.”
Magda says the book “is the real me, more intimate and far more serious”, and has found readers are fascinated by its moral questions and discussion of intergenerational trauma.
“The process of writing the book changed me. Rather than a grey fog around me that I couldn’t understand, I have a handrail,” she says.
For The Carousel‘s exclusive video interview with Magda about her award-winning book, click here.
In other prize categories, acclaimed novelist Tim Winton was also a first-time winner, picking up the Non-Fiction Book of the Year award with Island Home: a landscape memoir.
The complete list of winners are:
Book of the year
Reckoning: A Memoir, Magda Szubanski
Biography of the year
Reckoning: A Memoir, Magda Szubanski
General fiction book of the year
The Patterson Girls, Rachael Johns
General non-fiction book of the year
Island Home, Tim Winton
Literary fiction book of the year
The Other Side of the World, Stephanie Bishop
Book of the year older children
Illuminae, Amie Kaufman
Book of the year for younger children
The 65-Storey Treehouse, Andy Griffith
Illustrated book of the year
The Happy Cookbook, Lola Berry
