Congratulations to A.S. Patric, whose book Black Rock White City has been named winner of the 2016 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
The $60,000 prize is Australia’s most prestigious literary award and was established in 1957 through the will of writer Stella Miles Franklin, best known for the novel My Brilliant Career. It is awarded each year to a novel by an Australian writer that “presents Australian life in any of its phases”.
I got up at stupid o’clock this morning to finish this novel, which I started earlier in the week, and am so glad I spent a couple of hours this morning penning my review! Just in the nick of time, as they say…
You can read reviews of all the shortlisted titles here.
Reading Matters 
Your review left me wanting to read this and now I definitely will! I wonder if the topical migrant experience edged out The Natural Way of Things and Salt Creek?
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Yes, I wondered that too: it has an important story to tell about migrants/refugees that hasn’t really been told before in Australia. Sadly, the people who need to read it (politicians, policy makers, anti-immigration people) probably won’t ever read it.
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Would love to read this but I see the price in UK is really high and I can’t get it from the library either. They do so little Australian authors other than the big, big names
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Do you not have a Kindle, Karen? I see they’ve dropped the price drastically overnight. I bought it in e format for about £10 and now it’s £5.39. The paperback’s £20, which is about the same price I’d expect to pay for a book in Australia, where trade protection rules mean books are quite expensive (the equivalent of £15 to £20 for a paperback we buy here for £8). Australians like to pay their authors properly! Although changes are currently afoot to the legislation, which rightly has Australian authors up in arms. It’s a difficult one to balance, because authors need to be paid but consumers need to be able to afford to buy books to read. I have mixed feelings about it. Think we are very spoilt in the UK because books are so damn cheap.
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