The Winner is....

On Thursday 18 June at a gala dinner held at the State Library of New South Wales. Tim Winton was announced as the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner for his novel Breath.

It is twenty-five years ago when Tim won his first Miles Franklin Literary Award for Shallows. This year's win means that he is the only writer ever to have won four times in his own right.

Miles Franklin Literary Award

The Miles Franklin Literary Award, our first and most prestigious literary award, was established in 1954 with a bequest from the author Miles Franklin. She was concerned to see Australian literature flourish and knew first hand the struggles most authors have in Australia.

The Miles Franklin Literary Award celebrates Australian character and creativity and nurtures the continuing life of literature about Australia. It is awarded for the novel of the year which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phase.

The Longlist

The ten novels selected for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009 longlist are:

Novel	Author
Addition	Toni Jordan
A Fraction of the Whole	Steve Toltz
Breath	Tim Winton
fugitive blue	Claire Thomas
Ice	Louis Nowra
one foot wrong	Sofie Laguna
The Devil's Eye	Ian Townsend
The Pages	Murray Bail
The Slap	Christos Tsiolkas
Wanting	Richard Flanagan

The shortlist will be announced on the 16th April and the winner will be announced on the 18th June.

Miles Franklin Literary Awards

The winner of the 2008 Miles Franklin Literary Award is Steven Caroll for 'The Time We Have Taken'. The short list was as follows:

The Fern Tattoo	David Brooks	University of Queensland Press
The Time We Have Taken	Steven Carroll	Fourth Estate (HarperCollins Publishers)
Love Without Hope	Rodney Hall	Picador (Pan Macmillan Australia)
Sorry	Gail Jones	Vintage (Random House Australia)
Landscape of Farewell	Alex Miller	Allen & Unwin

If you want some quality Australian literature to read over the holidays, mayybe read the winner or one of his competitors.