Miles Franklin Award
annual Australian literature award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2025, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Winners, old dating convention
The prize originally took its date from the year in which eligible novels were published, ignoring the fact that it was not awarded until the following year.
1957–1959
1960–1969
1970–1979
1980–1987
Winners, new dating convention
The prize is still for the best novel published during the preceding year, but now bears the date of the year in which it is awarded. While the change meant there was no prize called "1988", there is no break in the annual series. The award for novels published in 1987 was announced on 10 May 1988 as the "1987" prize (won by Glenda Adams), and the award for novels published in 1988 was announced on 25 July 1989 as the "1989" prize (won by Peter Carey).
1989
1990–1999
2000–2009
2010–2019
2020–
Controversies
Author Frank Moorhouse was disqualified from consideration for his novel Grand Days because the story was set in Europe during the 1920s and was not sufficiently Australian.
1995 winner Helen Darville, also known as Helen Demidenko and Helen Dale, won for The Hand That Signed the Paper and sparked a debate about authenticity in Australian literature.
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