The 2025 Miles Franklin shortlist was announced today (Wednesday 25 June), by Perpetual as Trustee, alongside Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund
This year’s shortlist is:
- Chinese Postman by Brian Castro (Giramondo Publishing)
- Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (Text Publishing)
- Dirt Poor Islanders by Winnie Dunn (Hachette Australia)
- Compassion by Julie Janson (Magabala Books)
- Ghost Cities by Siang Lu (University of Queensland Press)
- Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane (Allen & Unwin)
According to a statement from the judges ,“The shortlist for the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award celebrates writing that refuses to compromise. Each of these works vitalises the form of the novel and invents new languages for the Australian experience.”
The 2025 judging panel comprises Richard Neville (Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW and Chair), Associate Professor Jumana Bayeh (literary scholar), Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty (literary scholar and translator), Professor Tony Hughes-d’Aeth (literary scholar and author) and Professor Hsu-Ming Teo (author and literary scholar).
Each shortlisted author receives $5000 from the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
The 2025 winner will be announced on 24 July 2025 and will receive $60,000.
A live panel event with three shortlisted authors, presented by Copyright Agency, will take place on Wednesday 2 July at Gleebooks.
Read: Australian literary festivals in 2025
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual prize established in the will of author Stella Miles Franklin (1879-1954) and awarded to a book that is deemed to be of the highest literary merit and which presents Australian life in any of its phases. Its first award was in 1957.
