The longlist for the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award has been unveiled, featuring ‘ten novels that collectively offer a portrayal of Australian life in all its diversity’.
A spokesperson for the Award trustee, Perpetual, said: ‘The works, which include two former longlist winners and one past shortlistee, showcase the talent and creativity of authors from across the nation and set the stage for an exciting journey toward the prestigious award.
‘Bringing together stories shaped by varied cultural backgrounds, voices and experiences, this selection celebrates the richness and complexity of Australian storytelling today.’
This year’s shortlist will be announced in June, with the winner of the $60,000 annual prize to be announced in August.
The 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist
- Discipline (Randa Abdel-Fattah, University of Queensland Press)
- I Want Everything (Dominic Amerena, Summit Books)
- Salt Upon the Water (Lyn Dickens, Wakefield Press)
- Tenderfoot (Toni Jordan, Hachette)
- First Name Second Name (Steve MinOn, University of Queensland Press)
- My Heart at Evening (Konrad Muller, Evercreech Editions)
- Fierceland (Omar Musa, Penguin Random House Australia)
- Little World (Josephine Rowe, Black Inc.)
- Elegy, Southwest (Madeleine Watts, Ultimo Press)
- You Must Remember This (Sean Wilson, Affirm Press).
The 2026 Miles Franklin judges are Richard Neville, Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW, as chair, and literary scholars Jumana Bayeh, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Tony Hughes-d’Aeth and Maggie Nolan.
According to the judging panel: ‘Destabilised histories, faltering memories and chequered geographies meet in the pages of the 2026 Miles Franklin longlist. From Far North Queensland to Tasmania and all the way to remote Western Australia, these novels remind us of the vastness of this continent, the many times and places that Australian stories inhabit, and the global networks in which “Australian life” is invariably embedded.
‘This year’s longlist is haunted by ancestral inheritances, the human capacity for self-deception, and the ways we make space for grief. These novels hold up mirrors to little worlds and large ones too.’
Last year, the Miles Franklin Literary Award was awarded to Siang Lu for his novel, Ghost Cities (2024).
