The winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin award was announced this evening, and it’s not one I’ve read, even though this year I’ve actually read two of the six shortlisted books! A record for me in recent times. The winner is:
Shankari Chandran, Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens
It’s a book I’ve been toying with reading since it first came out, and it is on my reading group’s short list of schedule suggestions, so maybe its time will come.
ArtsHub, in announcing the award, quotes Chandran’s response to winning:
I’m excited by the prospect of a wider readership for for this novel. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens can take the reader to a difficult and uncomfortable place; there’s trauma and bigotry – but I have tried to explore that within a safe space of humour and love and respect
The book has a cutesy title and a pretty cover which I admit initially made me think it was one of those cosy murder stories. It is set in a nursing home in Western Sydney where, you know, you can imagine Miss Marple investigating a murder. But, after seeing Brona’s review (see below), I realised that this is not what this book is at all. It is, says ArtsHub, “a multigenerational and historical journey of revelation and reckoning across time and place”. Chandran, who calls Australia her “chosen home, and Sri Lanka her ancestral home” says her novel is set “against the backdrop of rising racism in contemporary Australia”. It also flashes back “to big movements in Sri Lanka’s history” and “dives into the contested formation and histories of both countries”.
Big congrats to Shankari Chandran!
Just to remind you … the shortlist
- Kgshak Akec, Hopeless kingdom (UWAP)
- Robbie Arnott, Limberlost (Text) (my review)
- Jessica Au, Cold enough for snow (Giramondo) (my review)
- Shankari Chandran, Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens (Ultimo Press) (Brona’s review)
- Yumna Kassab, The lovers (Ultimo Press)
- Fiona Kelly McGregor, Iris (Pan Macmillan Australia) (Lisa’s review; kimbofo’s review)
The 2023 judges wereRichard Neville, Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW and Chair; author and literary critic, Dr Bernadette Brennan; literary scholar and translator, Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty; book critic, Dr James Ley; and author and editor, Dr Elfie Shiosaki.
Thoughts?
Whispering Gums 
I did love Limberlost and Cold Enough for Snow and would have been delighted if they had won, but I read Chai Time about 16 months ago now, and I still think about it. I’m thrilled this story will get more attention and readers after tonight.
Thanks Brona. It and your post really make me feel I should read it. I will give it a push when we we choose our books for the first half of next year.
It certainly fills the brief about representing ‘Australian life in any of its phases.’
I just heard her on ABC RN and it sounds so!
I’m admit to being disappointed, this was the last thing I expected to win.
Thanks Lisa. I haven’t read it yet but this win makes me feel that I really should.
I thought I ‘should’ when Peter Temple won it for a crime novel and resented wasting my time on it; I thought I ‘should’ when Evie Wyld won it for that ghastly All the Birds, Singing and gave up feeling nauseated; and I gave up feeling that I ‘should’ altogether when Sofie Laguna won it for The Eye of the Sheep. Now I read books that appeal to me, regardless of the prizes they might have won.
Oh yes, I don’t mean I “should” read books I don’t want to. Time is too short. But I do want to read it, so I feel I should try to find a way to make it work. FWIW I liked All the birds, singing! I also quite liked Truth, but it’s the other book of his that I read, The broken shore, that I actually remember. Winning prizes can feed into my decision-making but is by no means the only or even main criterion.
It absolutely DOES sound like a cozy mystery, and that is a detriment to the author. I wish the PR team had pushed for something more respectable, though here I am calling cozy mysteries not respectable, which isn’t terribly tolerant.