The shortlisted works for the 2012 Miles Franklin Award have been announced.
The works are:
Blood by Tony Birch
All That I Am by Anna Funder
Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears
Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse
Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett
There has also been a slight change in emphasis for the award. According to Franklin's will the award will be presented to the best Australian "published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases". This has generally been interpreted as having a mainly geographical or character-based focus. In other words, having a work set in Australia or featuring Australian characters made it eligible. Now the emphasis is on allowing judges to include works that display Australian life, setting, characters, history, values or mindset.
Seems like a reasonable approach to me.
The works are:
Blood by Tony Birch
All That I Am by Anna Funder
Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears
Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse
Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett
There has also been a slight change in emphasis for the award. According to Franklin's will the award will be presented to the best Australian "published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases". This has generally been interpreted as having a mainly geographical or character-based focus. In other words, having a work set in Australia or featuring Australian characters made it eligible. Now the emphasis is on allowing judges to include works that display Australian life, setting, characters, history, values or mindset.
Seems like a reasonable approach to me.
