Miles Franklin Literary Award 2016 shortlist announced

29 May 2016 Books+Publishing

The shortlist for the 2016 Miles Franklin Literary Award has been announced.

The shortlisted titles are:

Hope Farm (Peggy Frew, Scribe)
Leap (Myfanwy Jones, A&U)
Black Rock White City (A S Patric, Transit Lounge)
Salt Creek (Lucy Treloar, Pan Macmillan)
The Natural Way of Things (Charlotte Wood, A&U).

The shortlist, chosen from a longlist of nine, was announced at the Australian Booksellers Association Conference in Canberra. Each shortlisted author receives $5000.

The winner, who receives $60,000, will be announced at the opening night of the Melbourne Writers Festival on 26 August.

State Library of NSW Mitchell Librarian Richard Neville said on behalf of the judging panel: ‘The focus of this year’s shortlist is the creation, maintenance and manipulation of identity: the impact of its dislocation, the devastation of its theft, and the consequences of its re-imagination. The 2016 shortlist moves around colonial society, a dysfunctional late twentieth century and a disturbing future, all realised with divergent but consistently powerful voices.’

The judging panel comprises Neville; journalist Murray Waldren; bookseller Lindy Jones; author, editor and Queensland Writers Centre founding chair Craig Munro; and Flinders University emeritus professor Susan Sheridan.

The Miles Franklin Literary Award is presented for a novel judged as being ‘of the highest literary merit’ and which presents ‘Australian life in any of its phases’. For more information about the shortlist, click here.

Category: Local news