The 15 Best Miles Franklin Award-Winning Novels

Sweeping outback epics, intimate small-town romances and fierce contemporary voices, all crowned by Australia's most prestigious literary prize. Which deserves the top spot?

1

Voss

Patrick White's 1957 novel about a doomed expedition into the Australian outback, the very first Miles Franklin winner.

1000pts

2

Too Much Lip

Melissa Lucashenko's fierce, funny 2019 winner about a Aboriginal woman returning to her hometown.

600pts

3

Breath

Tim Winton's 2009 winner about teenage surfers chasing danger and thrill on the coast.

551pts

4

Oscar and Lucinda

Peter Carey's 1989 winner about two gamblers and a glass church, later adapted into a film.

428pts

5

Dirt Music

Tim Winton's 2002 winner, a passionate story of love and escape on Australia's wild west coast.

428pts

6

Truth

Peter Temple's 2010 crime novel, the first genre thriller to win the Miles Franklin.

428pts

7

The Great World

David Malouf's 1991 novel following two men through war and the sweep of 20th-century Australian life.

350pts

8

That Deadman Dance

Kim Scott's 2011 winner about early contact between Aboriginal people and European settlers.

350pts

9

Cloudstreet

Tim Winton's beloved 1992 saga of two working-class families sharing a rambling Perth house.

350pts

10

Praiseworthy

Alexis Wright's monumental 2024 winner, an epic satire set in a climate-changed Australian town.

350pts

11

Questions of Travel

Michelle de Kretser's 2013 winner interweaving two lives across decades of global wandering.

257pts

12

The Idea of Perfection

Kate Grenville's 2001 winner, a quiet love story set in a small New South Wales town.

257pts

13

Carpentaria

Alexis Wright's sweeping 2007 novel of an Aboriginal community in Australia's Gulf Country.

143pts

14

Bliss

Peter Carey's darkly comic 1981 debut novel about an advertising man who believes he has died and gone to hell.

143pts

15

The Yield

Tara June Winch's acclaimed 2020 novel weaving language, loss, and Indigenous heritage.

143pts