Six authors have been shortlisted for Australia’s most prestigious book award, the Miles Franklin Literary Prize, which will be announced on Thursday. The shortlist features a diverse range of genres and styles, with each book hailing from a different publisher. Notable among them is Fiona McFarlane’s Highway 13, the first collection of linked stories to be shortlisted for the prize, which is awarded to 'the novel of the highest literary merit.'
The shortlist includes Brian Castro’s Chinese Postman, a philosophical novel that follows Abraham Quin, a narrator who rejects philosophy and novel-writing but engages in scatological musings and email correspondence with a Ukrainian woman. Julie Janson’s Compassion, a sequel to her 2020 novel Benevolence, is a realist historical novel set between 1836 and 1854, told from the perspective of a Darug woman named Duringah who escapes abuse and travels across Indigenous lands.
Winnie Dunn’s Dirt Poor Islanders is a semi-autobiographical debut novel that explores the tension between writing and privacy within the Tongan-Australian community. The shortlist also includes works by other authors, all under 400 pages. The Miles Franklin award, named after the author of My Brilliant Career, is one of Australia’s most coveted literary honours.
