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BIZARRE: 2 | Mind Blowing Facts

Australia’s ‘inconvenient’ women writers blazed a trail through the 20th century

In Inconvenient Women, Jacqueline Kent shines a spotlight on some of Australia’s most radical and influential writers.

The Conversation · May 14, 2025

Friday essay: Miles Franklin’s other brilliant career – her year as an undercover servant

In the Miles Franklin archive in the State Library of New South Wales there are two brown, cloth-bound volumes, titled, “When I was Mary-Anne, A Slavey”. The thick, handwritten pages are amended with glued paper inserts copied from the missing diary the author of My Brilliant Career kept for roughly…

The Conversation · Mar 13, 2025

Joan Lindsay published Picnic at Hanging Rock at 71. Her writing life presents its own mysteries

Brenda Niall’s new book, as its full title announces, is a biographical account of the “hidden life” of novelist Joan Lindsay, best known as the author of Picnic at Hanging Rock.

The Conversation · Feb 23, 2025

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Unfinished Business by Shankari Chandran review – page-turning political thriller from Miles Franklin winner

The award-winning author has hit a more commercial note with this nuanced thriller about a CIA agent investigating the assassination of a journalist in Sri Lanka

The Guardian - AU · Jan 23, 2025

My Brilliant Career: musical based on Miles Franklin’s novel takes us on a sassy, spirited journey of self-discovery

Melbourne Theatre Company’s My Brilliant Career is a musical re-imagining of Miles Franklin’s classic 1901 novel of the same name. It follows a young woman, Sybylla Melvyn, as she chafes against her rural constraints to seek creative freedom.

The Conversation · Nov 18, 2024

Alexis Wright wins $60,000 Melbourne literature prize

The Waanyi writer, who won the Miles Franklin award and Stella prize this year for her novel Praiseworthy, has been recognised for her body of work and contribution to Australian culture

The Guardian - AU · Nov 14, 2024

My Brilliant Career review – this Miles Franklin musical is a funny, feminist triumph

Kala Gare is a force of nature as Sybylla, spurning suitors in order to live a writer’s life, in a musical that spans pub rock, hip-hop and sweeping solos

The Guardian - AU · Nov 13, 2024

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The Deal by Alex Miller review – the failure and the fire of an artist’s life

The two-time Miles Franklin winner’s latest book revisits familiar characters from his life and work, interrogating art, friendship and fatherhood

The Guardian - AU · Oct 3, 2024

Praiseworthy makes history: Alexis Wright is the first author to win the Miles Franklin and the Stella Prize for one book

Waanyi writer Alexis Wright and her magnum opus Praiseworthy have made history by winning this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award. She’s now the first writer to win the Miles Franklin and The Stella Prize (both national literary prizes) for the same work.

The Conversation · Aug 1, 2024

No longer pale, male and stale: your guide to the 2024 Miles Franklin shortlist

Shortlists are odd things. Put two lots of judges in separate rooms with the same works and you will not come up with the same one. But it is always interesting when their choices overlap.

The Conversation · Jul 31, 2024

Miles Franklin award 2024: Alexis Wright continues dream run as shortlist announced

Much-lauded Praiseworthy joins works by Gregory Day, André Dao, Sanya Rushdi, Jen Craig and Hossein Asgari competing for Australia’s highest literary honour

The Guardian - AU · Jul 1, 2024

Miles Franklin Literary Award finalists announced

The Miles Franklin judges say they are "awed by the ambitious sweep and range of the novels" competing for the prestigious $60,000 literary award.

AAP · Jul 1, 2024

Shankari Chandran: ‘In western thinking, duty is seen as a burden’

The Miles Franklin award-winning author contemplates writing, Australia’s attitudes to migrants and the meaning of home

The Guardian - AU · Jun 7, 2024

Safe Haven by Shankari Chandran review – a damning indictment of Australia’s refugee policy

The Miles Franklin winner has somehow created a novel that feels warm and generous even when provoking feelings of discomfort and shame

The Guardian - AU · May 9, 2024

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The Guardian - AU · Nov 29, 2023

Alex Miller: ‘I’d much rather be in Paul Keating’s club than Tony Abbott’s, thank you’

In a new collection of the author’s private letters and diaries, he lets loose on mental health, the Miles Franklin, and turning down an Australia Day honour. ‘I still wouldn’t accept one,’ he says now

The Conversation · Jul 25, 2023

Shankari Chandran wins the Miles Franklin with a sophisticated take on racism, cultural erasure and what it means to belong

“Race and racial identity and what it means to be Australian and who gets to decide that … that has been a part of my life here, for my entire life …,” says Western Sydney author Shankari Chandran. “I’ve thought about it a lot but never had the courage to…

The Guardian - AU · Jul 24, 2023

Morning Mail: Super profits tax push to ‘fix’ housing crisis, poll verdict on Games axing, Greece wildfire evacuation

Union wants corporate hit to pay for house building, while Essential survey shows 40% back scrapping Commonwealth Games

The Guardian - AU · Jul 24, 2023

Miles Franklin 2023: a guide to the shortlist of Australia’s biggest literary prize

Six authors are in the running for Australia’s most prestigious book award, which will be announced on Tuesday. Here’s your primer

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The Conversation · Jul 24, 2023

Queer disobedience and uncomfortable truths: your guide to the 2023 Miles Franklin shortlist

This year’s Miles Franklin shortlist takes us from Sydney’s criminal underclass in the 1930s and the quiet waters of rural Tasmania in the 1940s to shopping for design objects in contemporary Japan.

The Guardian - AU · Jun 19, 2023

Miles Franklin award 2023: shortlist revealed for Australia’s prestigious literary prize

Five first-time nominees are among the six authors competing for $60,000 award for novels that ‘present Australian life in any of its phases’

The Conversation · Mar 1, 2023

Writing is a 'questionable business', but what to make of John Hughes, one of the most prolific plagiarists in literary history?

In June of last year, the Guardian revealed that John Hughes’ Miles Franklin-longlisted novel The Dogs contained material lifted from The Unwomanly Face of War, a book by Nobel Prize-winning Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich. When approached about this, Hughes apologised for the transgression, describing the plagiarism as unintentional.

ABC News · Nov 25, 2022

The best new books released in November as selected by avid readers and critics

A mystery novel inspired by The Teacher's Pet, a WWI story featuring Miles Franklin, and the overdue biography of a celebrated Australian writer are in our top reads this month.

The Guardian - AU · Nov 6, 2022

‘Remarkable’, ‘gorgeous’, ‘entertaining’: the best Australian books out in November

Each month, Guardian Australia editors and critics pick out the upcoming titles they’ve already devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on

ABC News · Oct 28, 2022

The best new books released in October as selected by avid readers and critics

A spin on the colonial ‘missing child tale’, a collection of essays dissecting horror and a Miles Franklin nominee’s small masterpiece are among our critics' top picks for the month.

The Conversation · Sep 25, 2022

'Painful, confronting and totally riveting': Peggy Frew's novel of dysfunctional sisters is ultimately uplifting

In her hybrid critical memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi poses a knotty question regarding the spell of problematic books such as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.

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