The Miles Franklin

This week, at a slap-up dinner at the State Library in Swanston Street, the winner of Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, will be announced. Since last month, booksellers have been trying to predict the winner and place their book orders accordingly.

“It’s like betting on the ponies,’’ I muttered while examining the publishers’ “special Miles Franklin offer” list. It was like studying the form guide for the fifth at Eagle Farm. Perplexing and potentially very expensive.

There are only three books on this year’s shortlist: When Colts Ran by New South Wales author Roger McDonald, Bereft by Melbourne’s Chris Womersley, and the bookies’ favorite That Deadman Dance, a story set in WA and written by West Australian Kim Scott.

The judges concluded that “the shortlisted books this year are like barometers of the state of our culture. They take the readings and give them back to us in fiction of extraordinary accomplishment.’’ Each work is set in the past and each has a strong male character at the heart of its plot. These facts take nothing away from the stories; they are rigorous, at times complex, stylistically different but beautifully crafted. Our library shelves are lucky to have them.

Whichever book takes the prize this week, you can be sure of one thing: every decent independent bookshop in Melbourne will have a stack of the winning novel on prominent display. It’s a way of showing our respect for a writer’s great achievement.

But it’s also about turnover. Major lit awards come around too infrequently in Australia, and the sales kick that comes after a book wins a major award can turn a quiet week into a profitable one. The bigger the display, the more likely we are to attract readers’ attention. And during a fraught time in the history of Australian bookselling, the Miles Franklin and all its related publicity is very welcome indeed. This year’s Miles Franklin has generated some hearty debate within literary and publishing circles.

When the shortlist was announced in April there was a lot of muttering about the fact that only three books – there are usually five or six – had made the cut. There were many who believed the judges had been too harsh in their assessments of the longlist candidates, which included books by Jon Bauer, Melina Marchetta and Stephen Orr.

And then there is the gender issue. The three contenders are men.

“It is the second time in three years that the Miles Franklin shortlist has been all male,’’ arts critic and blogger Alison Croggon wrote in The Drum, adding that in the past decade the Miles Franklin has been won by a male writer eight times.

“What are we to make of this?’’ asks Croggon. “Are men 80 per cent more genius than women? Or just 80 per cent better at winning prizes?’’

I am sure that this year’s Miles Franklin judges, Morag Fraser (chair), Richard Neville, Gillian Whitlock, Lesley McKay and Murray Waldren, would have debated the absence of female writers on their list. But I admire their courage for sticking to the terms of Miles Franklin’s bequest that states the prize must be awarded for the novel of the year that is of “the highest literary merit and which must present Australian life in any of its phases’’.

If the judges believe that, over the past 12 months, there have not been enough books of the highest literary merit, and that no female writers had achieved the desired standard, then so be it. The onus is on female writers, editors and book publishers to try to redress this gender imbalance. The bias may be perceived or real; what matters is that there is a sincere and long-term investment in Australia’s female authors so they, also, have the chance to write important and truly great novels.

“What would the Miles Franklin be without controversy?” Ramona Koval, presenter of Radio National’s The Book Show, asked last week. We agree.

Long may the award continue to celebrate Australian writing and spark debate.