We are delighted to announce that four of our Picador Australia titles have made the longlist for the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award this year.
Considering only ten books make the longlist, we’re pretty proud of our 40% market share . . .
“The 2019 Miles Franklin longlist yet again highlights a mixture of new and established writers. It showcases ten of the most vibrant voices of Australian fiction speaking to us of lives facing, or having endured, some version of extremity. Angry, funny, contemplative and urgent, these voices – which include a galah – explore personal, historical and ecological loss, cultural inheritances and disenfranchisement, and the fraught bonds of friendships, families and communities,” said Richard Neville, State Library of NSW Mitchell Librarian.
Congratulations to Gregory Day, Rodney Hall, Jennifer Mills and Tracy Sorensen.
To celebrate this wonderful news, we’ve put a spotlight on each of our longlisted titles. Get to know these four books and their authors below:
About the books:
A SAND ARCHIVE
Gregory Day
Seeking stories of Australia’s Great Ocean Road, a young writer stumbles across a curious manual whose author has dedicated a lifetime to the study of shifting sands – whether metaphorical and literal. Undoubtedly Gregory Day’s magnum opus, this ‘skilful, lyrical novel’ (The Australian) ‘unlocks a world both of sorrow and unexpected poetry’ (Sydney Morning Herald) in the life of its protagonist, a quiet Australian engineer who bears comparison to Sebald’s Jacques Austerlitz or Williams’ Professor Stoner.
THE LUCKY GALAH
Tracy Sorensen
This ‘magnificently original’ (Charlotte Wood) fictionalised account of the role of one Western Australian town in the moon landing of 1969 narrated by a galah sold us from the moment we read the first lines. It is a charming, intelligent and piercingly satirical book in the author’s own words, it’s a sort of ‘Madame Bovary in the red dust with cyclones’. Perfect reading for the centenary of the moon landing in July this year.
DYSCHRONIA
Jennifer Mills
In an uncomfortably prescient scene, Dyschronia opens with a massive environmental disaster – the sea has receded, stranding a small beach town miles inland, surrounded by dying marine lifeforms. Flashing between a sort of Grecian chorus of the townsfolk who opt to remain, and the visions of their home-grown Cassandra, this book is a breathtakingly ‘daring, original and ambitious’ (The Australian) speculative novel about the state of our future given our inability to heed the warnings of our prophets.
A STOLEN SEASON
Rodney Hall
Master stylist Rodney Hall is no stranger to the Miles Franklin longlist. His diverse and ambitious oeuvre has made the shortlist seven times. His novels Just Relations (‘so good that you wish you had written it yourself.’ Salman Rushdie) and The Grisly Wife (‘casts a wicked spell’ New York Times) won the award in 1982 and 1994 respectively. This bated novel of three lives experiencing the triumph and catastrophe of the book’s title has been called ‘an unsettling triptych… a triumph of daring and narrative skill’ (The Age) and ‘outstanding and inimitable’ (ABR).
About the Miles Franklin Literary Award:
The Miles Franklin Literary Award was established by prolific author and feminist Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, now best known for her first novel My Brilliant Career. First presented in 1957, the Award celebrates novels of the highest literary merit that tell stories about Australian life. Winning authors also receive a prize of $60,000. The award remains Australia’s most prestigious and valued literary award.