Questions of Travel comes out on top of the unprecedented all-female-authored shortlist
Michelle de Kretser has been named winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin literary award for her fourth novel, Questions of Travel, at a ceremony in Canberra on Wednesday lunchtime.
De Kretser beat four other shortlisted authors – all women, for the first time in the prize’s history – with her novel set in Australia and Sri Lanka, where she was born, that touches upon travel, tourism and flight through its double-narrative structure.
Reviewing the book for Guardian, AS Byatt described it as a novel quite unlike any other. “It is not really possible to describe, in a short space, the originality and depth of this long and beautifully crafted book,” Byatt wrote. “It isn't easy to read because the reader is always in danger of missing something significant. It has an extraordinary ending. It persists in the mind long after the last page."
The Miles Franklin award, which was established in 1954 to encourage and support writers of Australian literature, is presented to novels judged to be of the highest literary merit, and which “present Australian life in any of its phases”.
Speaking on behalf of the 2013 judging panel, Richard Neville, Mitchell librarian at the state library of NSW said: “Michelle de Kretser's wonderful novel, Questions of Travel, 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.”
The shortlist also included Floundering by Romy Ash, The Beloved by Annah Faulkner, The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska; and Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany. All at a surface level were about families, said Neville.
“Each novel approaches its subject from a very different perspective, but all deliver complex, engrossing narratives which persist long after the books are closed.”
De Kretser, who was not at the ceremony, wins $60,000 in prize money. The panel included Murray Waldren from the Australian newspaper, Anna Low, a Sydney-based bookseller, Craig Munro, the founding chair of the Queensland Writers’ Centre and emeritus professor Susan Sheridan.
In a recent review of Questions of Travel, writer Frank Moorhouse wrote: “Australia has been waiting for a book which looks into the face of travel and sees it for all the illusions and traps and shallowness and, sometimes, life-changing meaning that it offers or withholds.”
De Kretser beat four other shortlisted authors – all women, for the first time in the prize’s history – with her novel set in Australia and Sri Lanka, where she was born, that touches upon travel, tourism and flight through its double-narrative structure.
Reviewing the book for Guardian, AS Byatt described it as a novel quite unlike any other. “It is not really possible to describe, in a short space, the originality and depth of this long and beautifully crafted book,” Byatt wrote. “It isn't easy to read because the reader is always in danger of missing something significant. It has an extraordinary ending. It persists in the mind long after the last page."
The Miles Franklin award, which was established in 1954 to encourage and support writers of Australian literature, is presented to novels judged to be of the highest literary merit, and which “present Australian life in any of its phases”.
Speaking on behalf of the 2013 judging panel, Richard Neville, Mitchell librarian at the state library of NSW said: “Michelle de Kretser's wonderful novel, Questions of Travel, 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.”
The shortlist also included Floundering by Romy Ash, The Beloved by Annah Faulkner, The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska; and Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany. All at a surface level were about families, said Neville.
“Each novel approaches its subject from a very different perspective, but all deliver complex, engrossing narratives which persist long after the books are closed.”
De Kretser, who was not at the ceremony, wins $60,000 in prize money. The panel included Murray Waldren from the Australian newspaper, Anna Low, a Sydney-based bookseller, Craig Munro, the founding chair of the Queensland Writers’ Centre and emeritus professor Susan Sheridan.
In a recent review of Questions of Travel, writer Frank Moorhouse wrote: “Australia has been waiting for a book which looks into the face of travel and sees it for all the illusions and traps and shallowness and, sometimes, life-changing meaning that it offers or withholds.”
I am delighted about this.
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