One Hundred Days, by acclaimed novelist and memoirist Alice Pung (Unpolished Gem Laurinda), also takes the form of a parent narrating their story to their child: in this case, it's 16-year-old Karuna, speaking to her unborn child - as she swelters in the Melbourne apartment where her Chinese-Filipino mother has confined her for the duration of her pregnancy. "If there's one thing I wanted to highlight and celebrate it's the strength of Arab fatherhood," Ahmad told The Book Show. Ahmad has described Bani as his alter ego - and he was inspired to write his new novel after the birth of his son, also named Kahlil. The Other Half of You takes the form of a letter from Bani to his son Kahlil, telling his story. It's the second time Ahmad has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, following his 2019 novel The Lebs (the second novel in the Bani Adam trilogy). Michael Mohammed Ahmad, meanwhile, closes his trilogy of "autobiographical fiction" about Bani Adam, an Arab Australian Muslim young man growing up in Western Sydney, with his novel The Other Half of You. So I wanted the format of the book to embody that, really that kind of disorientation, that feeling of 'Who changed the story?' that comes over you when you move to a new country," de Kretser told ABC RN's The Book Show. The 2022 judges are Richard Neville (Mitchell Librarian, State Library of NSW), literary critic Dr Bernadette Brennan, book critic Dr James Ley, literary scholar Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty, and author and editor Dr Elfie Shiosaki.įor her sixth novel, titled Scary Monsters, Michelle de Kretser (who won the Miles Franklin in 2013 for Questions of Travel, and in 2018 for The Life to Come) experiments with form, presenting two stories, each told by an Asian migrant to Australia, as separate 'halves' of the one book - each with its own cover.The 2021 Miles Franklin was won by Amanda Lohrey for The Labyrinth.
Past winners include Patrick White, Ruth Park, Thea Astley, Tim Winton, Peter Carey and Melissa Lucashenko.
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