Miles Franklin 2024 longlist announced
The longlist for the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award has been announced.
The longlisted titles, selected from 104 books, are:
- Only Sound Remains (Hossein Asgari, Puncher & Wattmann)
- Wall (Jen Craig, Puncher & Wattmann)
- Strangers at the Port (Lauren Aimee Curtis, Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
- Anam (André Dao, Hamish Hamilton)
- The Bell of the World (Gregory Day, Transit Lounge)
- Edenglassie (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP)
- The Sitter (Angela O’Keeffe, UQP)
- Hospital (Sanya Rushdi, Giramondo)
- Stone Yard Devotional (Charlotte Wood, A&U)
- Praiseworthy (Alexis Wright, Giramondo).
This year’s judging panel was made up of Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW Richard Neville (chair), literary scholars Jumana Bayeh and Mridula Nath Chakraborty, book critic James Ley, and author and literary scholar Hsu-Ming Teo.
‘The 2024 longlist engages profoundly with the historical, cultural, philosophical, artistic and environmental concerns of present-day Australia, spanning a breadth of narrative forms and literary styles,’ said the judges. ‘The list includes powerful stories of the legacies of colonisation and dispossession, and the strength, richness and humour of First Nation responses.’
‘Historical novels explore hitherto untold and unexpected stories of First Nations contact with settler-colonials as well as the multinational, multicultural roots of present-day Australian society. There are elegiac explorations of the diverse historical, political, economic, environmental, and ecological drivers of immigration. Some contemporary novels engage experimentally with ekphrastic responses to international poetry, music, art and artists.
‘Others provide insightful portraits of individual and imaginative responses to mental health and present some highly unusual, and thought-provoking, vignettes of life during the pandemic.
‘The tyranny of distance often ascribed to Australian literature is challenged by these novels that span generations and geopolitical spaces.’
The winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award was Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran (Ultimo).
Further information about the prize and longlist is available on the Miles Franklin award website.
Category: Awards Local news
