This week the longlist was announced for Australia's most prestigious literary awards, the Miles Franklin Award, with twelve authors vying for the $60,000 prize. Richard Neville, Librarian from the State Library of NSW, said on behalf of the judges:
“The 2021 Miles Franklin longlist is a rich mix of well-established, early career and debut novelists whose work ranges from historical fiction to fabulism and psychologism. Through an array of distinctive voices these works invite their readers to engage with questions regarding the natural and animal worlds, asylum, sexual abuse, colonialism, racism and grief. These are stories about trauma and loss, and also about beauty, resilience and hope.”
Let's check out the Longlist:
Booker Prize winning author of The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga's latest novel is about an illegal immigrant fleeing Sri Lanka. Danny arrives in Sydney and tries to create a new life for himself. When he learns of a crime he needs to make a choice - come forward as a witness and risk deportation, or stay silent. Taking place over a single day, this novel raises important issues about systemic racism, Australia's immigration system, and the lack of assistance available to migrant communities.
Tasmanian author Arnott is is the award-winning writer of Flames (2018). His second novel, The Rain Heron, focusses on the relationships between humans and the natural world. Ren lives alone in the mountain forests of a country devastated by a coup. Her solitude is disrupted when a young soldier comes to her mountains.
High in the Alps a husband and wife are grieving the death of their firstborn child. Back home in Sydney, a man commits a violent act that brings international attention, and the husband becomes fixated on this crime. This is a novel of loss and resilience in the face of unbearable grief. Australian author Davis Woods is the author of Blood and Bone. I am not sure if I want to read this novel but I am intrigued by his PhD monograph on 'Frontier Justice in the Novels of James Fenimore Cooper and Cormac McCarthy' which sounds fascinating.
In 1893 gold was discovered in Kalgoorlie by an Irish-born prospector, Paddy Hannan. Our Shadows is set in this goldfields town and focuses on three generations of a family. Raised by the grandparents, sisters Nell and Frances, struggled with the loss of their parents and have grown apart. Returning to the goldfields as an adult, Frances attempts to learn more about her father and understand her roots. Jones has been long/shortlisted for this prize five times but has never won. Will 2021 be her lucky year?
Lawrence is a smart young boy with a bright future ahead of him. His trajectory abruptly ends when he becomes a victim of child sexual abuse at the age of ten. As a young adult he withdraws from the world and lives with shame and secrecy. This sounds like a dark and depressing novel, but it is extremely topical. I am sure that this is a brilliantly written novel, but I am not sure I want to read it. Sofie Laguna won this award in 2015 for The Eye of the Sheep.
When Erica Marsden's son is imprisoned, she leaves her life in Sydney to move to a small coastal town to be closer to the correctional facility. In a rundown shack near the ocean, Erica obsesses over building a labyrinth as she reconciles her past and her feelings of maternal guilt over her son's actions. Lohrey is an author of fiction and non-fiction, she was longlisted for the 2016 Stella Prize for her novel A Short History of Richard Kline.
Jean is a grandmother who prefers the company of animals to people. She works as a guide at an outback wildlife park, and has formed an attachment to a dingo named Sue. When a pandemic spreads across the country, people begin to lose their minds. Fearing for the safety of her granddaughter, Jean and Sue take off on a road trip to find her. The Animals in that Country won the 2021 Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize.
Debut novelist Andrew Pippos has drawn on his life growing up in his family's Greek-Australian cafe too create his book Lucky's. In 2002 a writer flies to Sydney to research an article for The New Yorker about restauranteur 'Lucky' Mallios. Emily needs a win, having lost her job and her husband. Lucky also needs a win. He came to Australia from Greece and built a chain of successful restaurants, then things went bad and he lost everything. Now he wants to rebuild, atone for his past and leave a legacy to his family.
Set in the gold-rush era, this is the story of two siblings who leave China for Australia to seek their fortune. They find work in a town near the goldfields and begin to form relationships in the community. But when a crime is committed, all outsiders are considered suspects. Riwoe was previously shortlisted for the Stella Prize for her novel The Fish Girl. Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the Queensland Literary Award for Fiction and the ARA Historical Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize.
Jack is a writer obsessed with 'found people' in which unidentified people are found dead and now one knows who they were or why they died. He moves to Blue Bay, a small coastal town and befriends Sarah whose sister Alice went missing. He then discovers a book about the townsfolk written by a mosaic maker called Simon. Salom was shortlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin Award for his previous novel Waiting and longlisted in 2020 for The Returns.
Nardi Simpson - Song of the Crocodile
Darnmoor is the home of three generations of the Billymil family, who reside on the outskirts of a rural town. Over the years they experience the impacts of racism, violence, dispossession and colonialism and the intergenerational trauma that endures. The judges describe the Song of the Crocodile as 'a novel that contributes to a deeper understanding of Australia's history, and tells the stories of First Nations people in a voice and tone that has for so long been missing from our literary canon.' Simpson is a musician, playwright and Yuwaalaraay storyteller. This novel was shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and Indie Book Awards, and longlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize.
The narrator of Watts' debut novel works part time as an emergency dispatch operator, tracking the natural disasters that ravage Australia each year. Drinking heavily, reckless and ungrounded, she feels surrounded by disaster. A descendent of explorer John Oxley, she becomes obsessed with his search for the mythical inland sea. Watts hails from Sydney but now resides in New York.
I am pretty disappointed with this longlist as I had expected Richard Flanagan's The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves and possibly Trent Dalton's All our Shimmering Skies to be recognised.
At this stage I have not read any of these novels (and may not read any before the winner is revealed), however I will guess that Laguna, McKay, Riwoe and Simpson will make the shortlist. The Shortlist will be announced 16 June 2021 and the winner will be revealed on 15 July 2021.