Australian author Michelle de Kretser has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for a second time with her satirical novel The Life to Come.
Taking place at the Melbourne Writers Festival., the Sri Lankan born and Sydney based author claimed $60,000 AUD in prize money. She previously won the award in 2013 for her novel, Questions of Travel. Fellow winners include Tim Winton, Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally, and Thea Astley. De Kretser triumphed in a competative year, facing two-time winner Kim Scott for Taboo, Gerald Murnane for Border Districts, Eva Hornung for The Last Garden, Catherine McKinnon for Storyland and Felicity Castagna for No More Boats.
Profoundly moving and bitingly funny, The Life to Come reveals how the shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform, distort, and undo the present. Travelling from Sydney to Paris and Sri Lanka, this mesmerising novel feels at once firmly classic and exhilaratingly contemporary.
