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?

I haven’t posted a Miles Franklin longlist for a while, but when I saw today’s come through with its intriguing mix of titles, I decided it was time to do one again.

The longlist

• 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)
• Claire G Coleman, Enclave (Hachette) (Bill’s review, on my TBR)
• George Haddad, Losing face (UQP)
• Pirooz Jafari, Forty nights (Ultimo Press)
• Julie Janson, Madukka: The river serpent (UWAP)
• Yumna Kassab, The lovers (Ultimo Press)
• Fiona Kelly McGregor, Iris (Pan Macmillan Australia) (Lisa’s review; kimbofo’s review)
• Adam Ouston, Waypoints (Puncher & Wattmann) (Lisa’s review)

Some random observations:

• There is impressive diversity in the writers listed as I recollect there was last year, including seven of the eleven being by women, and two being by First Nations writers.
• Independent publishers are well represented, which is also becomings more common in recent prize listings
• Only a small number of these have been reviewed by my usual list of litblogger suspects, which makes me wonder about our reading choices versus those being chosen for these awards lists.
• Most of the novels are by authors with at least one book under their belt but Hopeless kingdom is a debut novel by a Sudanese-Australian author. Like many debut novels it is inspired by her own experience of migration from Africa to Australia. It won the Dorothy Hewett Award for unpublished manuscript in 2021. 
• There’s been little commentary today on the news sites, but hopefully this is because the announcement is less than a day old – or, maybe longlists just don’t garner the same interest as shortlists?

The judging panel

The 2023 judges are, from the announcement on the Perpetual Trustees website, Richard 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. This is, I believe, the same panel as last year’s, but Chakraborty and Shiosaki were new last year so there is some commitment to refreshing the panel. I don’t think it hurts for there to be some stability in panels, but a managed turnover is also important. (Says she!)

From this website too is a statement from the judging panel:

The 2023 longlist is a reflection of the breadth and depth of contemporary Australian story-telling. The eleven longlisted novels define Australian literature as a transformative space where writers are singing the songs of the nation today. They reverberate with the cadences of this land where Indigenous sovereignty was never ceded, but also bring to us mellifluous sounds from far-away lands, weaving together literary traditions from around the world. The words of our novelists, grounded in personal experience, poetry and philosophy, are heralds of the new dawn of Australian fiction: they hum and hiss with language that is newly potent and styles that are imaginative and fresh.

The shortlist will be announced on 20 June, and the winner on 25 July.

Thoughts?