Two Pan Macmillan authors shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2021
We are proud to announce that Lucky’s by Andrew Pippos and Amnesty by Aravind Adiga have been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2021. The shortlist features six books by a mix of debut, early career and established authors, all reflecting the rich and diverse fabric of Australia’s cultural landscape.
This adds to a number of nominations for Lucky’s, already shortlisted for the Mud Literary Prize 2021 and ABIA Matt Ritchell New Writer of the Year 2021.
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced on Thursday, 15 July.
Lucky’s is a story of family.
A story about migration.
It is also about a man called Lucky.
His restaurant chain.
A fire that changed everything.
A New Yorker article which might save a career.
The mystery of a missing father.
An impostor who got the girl.
An unthinkable tragedy.
A roll of the dice.
And a story of love – lost, sought and won again (at last).
Following a trail of cause and effect that spans decades, this unforgettable epic tells a story about lives bound together by the pursuit of love, family, and new beginnings.
From the Man Booker prize-winning author of The White Tiger
Danny – Dhananjaya Rajaratnam – is an illegal immigrant in Sydney, denied refugee status after he has fled from his native Sri Lanka. Working as a cleaner, living out of a grocery storeroom, for three years he’s been trying to create a new identity for himself. And now, with his beloved vegan girlfriend, Sonja, with his hidden accent and highlights in his hair, he is as close as he has ever come to living a normal Australian life.
But then one morning, Danny learns a female client of his has been murdered. When Danny recognizes a jacket left at the murder scene, he believes it belongs to another of his clients – a doctor with whom he knows the woman was having an affair. Suddenly Danny is confronted with a choice: come forward with his knowledge about the crime and risk being deported, or say nothing, and let justice go undone? Over the course of a single day, evaluating the weight of his past, his dreams for the future, and the unpredictable, often absurd reality of living invisibly and undocumented, he must wrestle with his conscience and decide if a person without rights still has responsibilities.