Miles Franklin Award Winner 2022

The winner of the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's most prestigious literary award, was announced via a live online presentation on 20 July 2022. This year the award and its $60,000 prize went to Jennifer Down for her novel, Bodies of Light.

Maggie Sullivan is institutionalised, growing up in a foster homes and group facilities after her father is jailed. Neglected and abused, by 19 she is diagnosed with depression and trauma. The novel follows Maggie into adulthood, when she is forced to encounter her long buried past. 

I heard Jennifer Down speak at the Sydney Writers Festival in May and found her extremely impressive. Bodies of Light was also shortlisted for the Stella Prize. I am so pleased that she won and that her work will receive a higher profile. 

The judges said "Bodies of Light invites readers to witness the all-too-often concealed, destructive forces of institutionalised care. With extraordinary skill and compassion, Down has written an important book which speaks to an urgent issue in contemporary Australian life.”

Jennifer Down said “It’s a profound honour to be awarded the Miles Franklin Literary Award—I’m still pinching myself. To be longlisted, and then shortlisted, among authors whose works I’ve long read and admired, already felt like a stroke of exceptional fortune. I was, and am, elated to be in the company of writers embracing stylistic, thematic and formal diversity, whose works explore such different slivers of ‘Australian life’.”

The announcement of the winner was live streamed: