According to Wikipedia: "The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize established by Patrick White. White used his 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature award to establish a trust for this prize.
"The $25,000 cash award is given to a writer who has been highly creative over a long period but has not necessarily received adequate recognition. Such writers are automatically eligible without the necessity for submissions."
Previous winners of the award have included Beverley Farmer, David Rowbotham, Jannette Turner Hospital, and Gerald Murnane.
Foster's most recent novel is Sons of the Rumour. The author also won the Miles Franklin Award in 1997 for The Glade within the Grove.
In his acceptance speech on the weekend Foster got stuck into a particular author living in Australia who he believed showed "no class" in continuing to contest literary awards when he had already won two Bookers and a Nobel. Although the author in question was not named it's not too diffcult to figure out who Foster was referring to.
