First-time shortlistee Siang Lu has won the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Ghost Cities – a bold and satirical reimagining of Australian storytelling.
“I am honoured beyond belief, and beyond words. I didn’t dare dream of this. It didn’t seem possible. My most heartfelt thanks to Perpetual as trustee for the Miles Franklin Literary Award estate, the Copyright Agency, my publisher Aviva Tuffield and the wonderful team at UQP, and my agent Brendan Fredericks,” said Siang Lu.
Established through the will of My Brilliant Career author, Stella Miles Franklin, for the “advancement, improvement and betterment of Australian literature,” the Miles Franklin Literary Award recognises a novel of “the highest literary merit” that presents “Australian life in any of its phases.” Perpetual serves as Trustee for the Award.
“Miles Franklin established this Award to celebrate literature that reflects the evolving spirit of Australian life. In Ghost Cities, Siang Lu not only captures the complexities of identity and belonging but also redefines what Australian literature can be,” said Perpetual’s National Manager – Philanthropy & Non Profit Services, Community, Social and ESG Investment, Jane Magor.
“His win is a powerful reminder that our stories are ever-changing – and that the literary tradition Miles Franklin envisioned continues to grow in daring and unexpected ways.”
Siang’s novel was chosen from a shortlist that included Chinese Postman by Brian Castro (Giramondo Publishing), Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (Text Publishing), Dirt Poor Islanders by Winnie Dunn (Hachette Australia), Compassion by Julie Janson (Magabala Books) and Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane (Allen & Unwin). Siang will receive $60,000 in prize money.
When describing this year’s winning novel, the judges said, “Siang Lu’s Ghost Cities is at once a grand farce and a haunting meditation on diaspora. Sitting within a tradition in Australian writing that explores failed expatriation and cultural fraud, Lu’s novel is also something strikingly new,” they said.
“In Ghost Cities, the Sino-Australian imaginary appears as a labyrinthine film-set, where it is never quite clear who is performing and who is directing. Shimmering with satire and wisdom, and with an absurdist bravura, Ghost Cities is a genuine landmark in Australian literature.”
The 2025 judging panel comprises 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; literary scholar and author, Prof Tony Hughes-d’Aeth; and author and literary scholar, Prof Hsu-Ming Teo.
First awarded in 1957, past winners of the Miles Franklin Literary Award have included Patrick White, Randolph Stow, Ruth Park, Thea Astley, Tim Winton, Peter Carey, Anna Funder, Michelle de Kretser, Melissa Lucashenko, Tara June Winch, Amanda Lohrey, Jennifer Down, Shankari Chandran and Alexis Wright.
For more information about the Miles Franklin Literary Award, visit: www.milesfranklin.com.au for details.
Images: Siang Lu – photo by Andreas Weiss | Ghost Cities – courtesy of University of Queensland Press