Congratulations to Michelle de Krester who has won this year’s Miles Franklin Award for Questions of Travel.
Congratulations also to all those longlisted and shortlisted for the award.
Speaking on behalf of the 2013 judging panel, Richard Neville, Mitchell Librarian, State Library of NSW, said the five novels in the 2013 shortlist, were at a surface level “all about families.”
Here is the complete, all female shortlist:
- Romy Ash – Floundering
- Annah Faulkner – The Beloved
- Michelle de Kretser – Questions of Travel
- Drusilla Modjeska – The Mountain
- Carrie Tiffany – Mateship with Birds
Richard Neville said of the five shortlisted novels: “Searching for their comfort, the crisis when they fail, escaping their pervasive grasp, or the despair when they do not seem possible – but more deeply these books are about the intersection of people’s lives with national, indeed international, stories and ideas. Each novel approaches its subject from a very different perspective, but all deliver complex, engrossing narratives which persist long after the books are closed.”
Also on the judging panel were: Murray Waldren, journalist and columnist at The Australian newspaper; Anna Low, a Sydney-based bookseller; Craig Munro biographer, book historian, publishing editor and founding chair of the Queensland Writers Centre and Emeritus Professor Susan Sheridan.
Of Questions of Travel Neville said: “Michelle de Kretser’s wonderful novel centres on two characters, with two stories, each describing a different journey. The stories intertwine and pull against one another, and within this double narrative, de Kretser explores questions of home and away, travel and tourism, refugees and migrants, as well as ‘questions of travel’ in the virtual world, charting the rapid changes in electronic communication that mark our lives today. She brings these large questions close-up and personal with her witty and poignant observations and her vivid language. Her novel is about keeping balance in a speeding, spinning world.”
Questions of Travel has been listed in the following literary awards:
Longlisted, 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Shortlisted, 2013 Indie Awards – Fiction
Shortlisted, 2013 Stella Prize
Shortlisted, 2013 ALS Gold Medal
Longlisted, 2013 Nita B Kibble Literary Awards for Women Writers – 2013 Kibble Literary Award
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. She was educated in Melbourne and Paris, and has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer. She is the award-winning author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case and The Lost Dog. The Lost Dog, won the 2008 NSW Premier’s Book of the Year Award and was also longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize and the 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction.
You can read our Miles Franklin longlist review roundup here.
Thanks for all your reviews and keep them coming in!
Paula
About Me
I’m a freelance book reviewer, journalist and editor and have worked as a librarian for many years. I’m always feeling guilty about what I ‘should’ have or ‘should be reading.’ I signed up for the AWW challenge in 2012 and this year, as well as doing my own challenge, I will be posting updates about Literary Awards and writing features. I blog over at Wordsville and you can find me on Twitter @PaulaGrunseit
While I have a deep seated love of Drusilla Modjeska for her prose and her name alone, Michelle de Kretser moves me like she knows me. The poetic in her words is what I feel most.
An excellent choice I feel. How long before Michelle, Drusilla or other female Aussie writers become the first Australian woman to win the Nobel Prize? Not long I imagine.
I haven’t read as much Drusilla as I should have but I think she is under-rated … I love your suggestion re the Nobel.
Great suggestion re the Nobel – here’s hoping.
Great announcement, Paula … thanks!
Thanks Sue 🙂
Posted a comment last night but it’s not here now. Anyway, excellent news on Michelle. There’s another prize she might win one day, the Nobel. I see she even made the news in Iran, wow. http://www.ibna.ir/vdciyzazwt1ayv2.ilct.html
Thanks for the link to the article Rob – how good is that!