Miles Franklin Award 2005 Shortlist

[duke]

Here's the list of the novels that have been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award for 2005. For those of you who arent Aussies, the Miles is the biggest and most prestigious literary award in Australia. It has been dogged with controversy over the years (long story), but is IMO always a good guide to the best new lit fiction written in Australia.

Enough rambling, here's the shortlist.

Sixty Lights by Gail Jones
The White Earth by Andrew McGahan
The Submerged Cathedral by Charlotte Wood
Salt Rain by Sarah Armstrong
The Gift of Speed by Stephen Carroll

And they were chosen from a long list that also had these books on it
Backwaters by Robert Engwerda
The Ghost Writer by John Harwood
The Broken Book by Susan Johnson
A Private Man by Malcolm Knox
The Philosopher's Doll by Amanda Lohrey
I Have Kissed Your Lips by Gerard Windsor
The Last Ride by Denise Young

None of these authors have won the award before, so its anyone's guess as to who will win.

I'm yet to read any of them (still wading through Barnaby Rudge by Dickens), but I hope to read the shortlist over the next year.

[Dragonlily]

Where would TOURMALINE by Randolph Stow fit in relation to that list? I picked it up from an international booth a couple months ago. From the back cover:

Tourmaline is an isolated Western Australian mining town -- a place of heat and dust, as allegorical as it is real. Out of the desert staggers a young diviner, Michael Random, offering salvation to this parched town. The once comatose community is indeed stirred to life, by hate as much as by love, and its people find salvation neither in water nor gold.

[danlo]

That's a great quote from the Heart of the Comet (incredible story!!!) DL--but Dr. Brin did the majority of the writing and, if I'm not mistaken he's the first author listed on the book...

[Dragonlily]

I have the paperback, Benford is listed first there. In the Acknowledgements, Brin's name is first in the byline.

Seems to me I read somewhere, recently, a tribute by Brin to Benford's beautiful writing. Can't find it right now.

Have you read Benford's ACROSS THE SEA OF SUNS? Great title!

[I only meant to transfer the last two posts to this forum, not the whole thread. ]

[duke]

Note to moderators - this topic should probably be in the Library under "General Literature Discussion" - my apologies for putting it where I did.

Where would Tourmaline by Randolph Stow fit in relation to that list?

Well, The Miles is an award given each year for novels published in that year. From doing a google I found that Tourmaline was published in 1963, so its obviously not eligible for this year's award.

Stow won the Miles in 1958 for "To the Islands", another book I'm yet to read, so I'm sure that his work was on the radar of the judges (or entered for the award). The Miles award is for Lit Fiction that is "of the highest literary merit and that shows Australian life in any of its phases".

Is Tourmaline worth a read?

McGahan won the award this year for "The White Earth". I'll post some comments on it when I've read it. Harry Potter is taking up all my time at the moment.

[duke]

Oh, and one more point, for Sci-fi and fantasy Australia has the Aurealis awards.

[Dragonlily]

Is Tourmaline worth a read?

Thanks, duke. That's what I was hoping to find out from you. I bought a recent reprint without knowing anything except it looked interesting. I haven't read it yet. Good to know the author has an award to his credit.

The Australian author I'm most familiar with is Arthur Upfield. I may have missed one or two of his, but not for lack of looking.