{"id":2022,"date":"2017-09-01T12:24:06","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T01:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=2022"},"modified":"2017-03-29T16:33:31","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T06:03:31","slug":"low-angle-shot-miles-franklin-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/09\/low-angle-shot-miles-franklin-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Low-angle shot of the Miles Franklin Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miles Franklin announcement is not far away. This award is arguably the most important on the Australian literary scene. In his <\/em>Brief Take on the Australian Novel<\/a>, Jean Fran\u00e7ois-Vernay structures\u00a0his approach by borrowing from\u00a0another popular art form: film. Here we have his ‘Low-angle shot of the Miles Franklin Award’.<\/em><\/p>\n

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In line with the wishes of Stella Franklin, who bequeathed almost\u00a0all of her estate estimated at \u00a38,996 to establish this literary prize,\u00a0the Miles Franklin Award must give preference to a published work\u00a0\u2018of the highest literary merit and which must present Australian Life\u00a0in any of its phases\u2019. Founded in 1957, the award has ever since\u00a0crowned 58 novels with glory and increased their sales.<\/p>\n

As is the case with any respected prize, the Miles Franklin\u00a0has had its share of controversies. In 1994, the jurors unleashed\u00a0a debate by excluding Frank Moorhouse\u2019s novel Grand Days\u00a0<\/i>(1993) from the competition, claiming that its Australian content\u00a0was practically insignificant. The story traces the career of a\u00a0young Australian woman who, after the Great War, works for the\u00a0United Nations in Geneva. In 1995, the committee tried to make\u00a0amends by celebrating The Hand That Signed the Paper <\/i>by Helen\u00a0Demidenko, but it later transpired that the author was a Ukrainian-impersonating\u00a0plagiarist. After this scandal, the jury decided to\u00a0play it safe in 1996 with Highways to a War <\/i>by Christopher Koch.\u00a0Pocketing the prize money, Koch started another controversy when\u00a0he revealed his uncharitable thoughts about academia.<\/p>\n

Today, some people think it is high time the overly restrictive\u00a0selection criteria of this award should be revised in order to take\u00a0into account novels whose characters, settings, themes and plots\u00a0are located outside Australia. The list of recipients of the Miles\u00a0Franklin is also widely criticised for comprising chiefly middleaged\u00a0novelists, few of whom are women (approximately one third\u00a0of all prize-winners), let alone Aboriginal (Kim Scott and Alexis\u00a0Wright being the exceptions). There is a sneaking suspicion that the\u00a0judging panel might almost be guilty of ageism, sexism and racism.\u00a0Despite the criticism, this national and nationalistic prize is still\u00a0regarded as a reliable benchmark for identifying great Australian\u00a0novels. The winner in 2010, Peter Temple\u2019s Truth<\/i>, indicated that\u00a0popular genres like crime novels are now taken seriously.<\/p>\n

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For more close-ups, panoramic views and special features on the Australian novel, see here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Miles Franklin announcement is not far away. This award is arguably the most important on the Australian literary scene. In his Brief Take on the Australian Novel, Jean Fran\u00e7ois-Vernay structures\u00a0his approach by borrowing from\u00a0another popular art form: film. Here … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[164,107],"tags":[691,690,201,688,689],"class_list":["post-2022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-extract","tag-a-brief-take-on-the-australian-novel","tag-australian-novel","tag-awards-2","tag-miles-franklin","tag-novels"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-wC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2024,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions\/2024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}