Perpetual, the trustee of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, has announced the ten authors who have been included on the 2024 longlist. They will be competing for one of the most recognised literary prizes in Australia, with the winner also receiving $60,000.
Selected from 104 books, the Award celebrates novels of the highest literary merit that tell stories about Australian life.
The 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist is:
- Only Sound Remains by Hossein Asgari (Puncher & Wattmann)
- Wall by Jen Craig (Puncher & Wattmann)
- Strangers at the Port by Lauren Aimee Curtis (Hachette UK)
- Anam by André Dao (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
- The Bell of the World by Gregory Day (Transit Lounge)
- Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko (University of Queensland Press)
- The Sitter by Angela O’Keeffe (University of Queensland Press)
- Hospital by Sanya Rushdi (Giramondo Publishing)
- Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (Allen & Unwin)
- Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (Giramondo Publishing)
“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 geo-political spaces,” they said.
The 2024 judges are Richard Neville, Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW and Chair; literary scholar, A/Prof Jumana Bayeh; literary scholar and translator, Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty; book critic, Dr James Ley; and author and literary scholar, Prof Hsu-Ming Teo.
Last year, the Miles Franklin Literary Award was awarded to Shankari Chandran for her novel, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (2023).
The Miles Franklin Literary Award was established by feminist, and author of My Brilliant Career, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin. First presented in 1957, the Award celebrates novels of the highest literary merit that tell stories about Australian life, shining a light on some of the country’s most accomplished writers.
The shortlisted finalists will be revealed on 2 July and the winner announced on 30 July 2024. For more information, visit: www.perpetual.com.au for details.
Image: 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award Longlist (supplied)