Miles Franklin Literary Award nominates only women for potential winners

May 1, 2013

Announced yesterday in Sydney, the shortlist for Australia's most prestigious literary award, the, includes only women for the first time in the award's history. The award had been criticized in the past for its exclusion of women on the short list, with no women appearing on it in 2009 and 2011.

This year's authors on the short list include Romy Ash for Floundering, for Questions of Travel, Annah Faulkner for The Beloved,  for The Mountain, and  for Mateship with Birds. The winner gets a cash prize of 60,000.

Judges said the shortlist selection was based on the quality of the literature, with gender not playing a role in their decision processes. Richard Neville, a librarian at the and judge, is quoted by the  saying, "People will probably think this is a riposte to the, [..] But I've judged this for four years, including the infamous year of the '', and we always try to view the books as literature. We felt the books on the shortlist selected themselves."

The longlist, announced in the last week of March, included two men out of ten total listed authors: for Street to Street, and  for The Daughters of Mars.

Perceived discrimination against women's writers in Australian literary circles led to the creation this year of the Stella Prize. The chair of the Sophie Cunningham played an integral role in creating the Stella Prize, modeled after the United Kingdom's. The award derives its name from Miles Franklin's birth name, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin.

The winner is scheduled to be announced on June 19 in Canberra.