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. 1
   Voss

   Patrick White's 1957 novel about a doomed expedition into the Australian outback, the very first Miles Franklin winner.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Too Much Lip

   Melissa Lucashenko's fierce, funny 2019 winner about a Aboriginal woman returning to her hometown.
   600pts
3. 3
   Breath

   Tim Winton's 2009 winner about teenage surfers chasing danger and thrill on the coast.
   551pts
4. 4
   Oscar and Lucinda

   Peter Carey's 1989 winner about two gamblers and a glass church, later adapted into a film.
   428pts
5. 5
   Dirt Music

   Tim Winton's 2002 winner, a passionate story of love and escape on Australia's wild west coast.
   428pts
6. 6
   Truth

   Peter Temple's 2010 crime novel, the first genre thriller to win the Miles Franklin.
   428pts
7. 7
   The Great World

   David Malouf's 1991 novel following two men through war and the sweep of 20th-century Australian life.
   350pts
8. 8
   That Deadman Dance

   Kim Scott's 2011 winner about early contact between Aboriginal people and European settlers.
   350pts
9. 9
   Cloudstreet

   Tim Winton's beloved 1992 saga of two working-class families sharing a rambling Perth house.
   350pts
10. 10
    Praiseworthy

    Alexis Wright's monumental 2024 winner, an epic satire set in a climate-changed Australian town.
    350pts
11. 11
    Questions of Travel

    Michelle de Kretser's 2013 winner interweaving two lives across decades of global wandering.
    257pts
12. 12
    The Idea of Perfection

    Kate Grenville's 2001 winner, a quiet love story set in a small New South Wales town.
    257pts
13. 13
    Carpentaria

    Alexis Wright's sweeping 2007 novel of an Aboriginal community in Australia's Gulf Country.
    0pts
14. 14
    Bliss

    Peter Carey's darkly comic 1981 debut novel about an advertising man who believes he has died and gone to hell.
    0pts
15. 15
    The Yield

    Tara June Winch's acclaimed 2020 novel weaving language, loss, and Indigenous heritage.
    0pts

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