Melbourne author Jennifer Down has won the $ 60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Prize, one of Australia’s most prestigious writers’ awards, for her ambitious and brutally realistic novel Bodies of Light, which examines the impacts of trauma. childishness in a person’s life.
Key factors
- The Miles Franklin Prize was first awarded in 1957.
- It was established in the will of author Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (author of My Brilliant Career).
- He distinguishes a novel “of the highest literary merit” that presents “Australian life in any of its phases.”
- Previous winners include Patrick White, Ruth Park, Thea Astley, Tim Winton, Peter Carey and Melissa Lucashenko.
- The 2021 Miles Franklin was won by Amanda Lohrey for The Labyrinth.
- The 2022 judges are Richard Neville (Mitchell Librarian, NSW State Library), literary critic Dra. Bernadette Brennan, Dra. James Ley, the book reviewer, Dr. Mridula Nath Chakraborty, and the author and editor, Dra. Elfie Shiosaki.
Down is the 18th woman to win the Miles Franklin — named after one of Australia’s most celebrated, though controversial, authors — since its inception in 1957. Nine women’s novels have won over the past decade.
Bodies of Light is the second novel by the 31-year-old author and her third book, after her 2016 debut, Our Magic Hour, and her 2017 award-winning short story collection, Pulse Points.
It chronicles Maggie’s life: from growing up as a victim of abuse in home care in the suburbs of Melbourne in the 1970s; through his adult struggles with mental illness, grief, and addiction in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States; in her relatively quiet middle age, working as a nurse in Burlington, Vermont.
“It’s not my story. I’m not an abandoned or survivor of care … [The subject is] it’s just something I’ve always been aware of and it’s attracted me precisely because the conventional media overlooks it, ”Down tells ABC Arts.
The judges, presided over by NSW Mitchell Librarian Richard Neville, praised Down’s “extraordinary skill and compassion” in compiling his novel, adding: “Down has written an important book, which speaks to an urgent problem of contemporary Australian life. “
Down first became acquainted with the subject of out-of-home care as the daughter of two parents who worked in the welfare system, who talked about their work and social policy at the table.
“My earliest memories are of my mom and grandpa, who store shit [former Victorian premier] Jeff Kennett in the early ’90s because he decimated welfare systems,” says Down.
For Bodies of Light, he conducted in-depth and detailed research into residential and out-of-home care systems in the 1970s and 1980s.
Accepting the Miles Franklin Award on Wednesday, Down said: “I am deeply moved that this is considered a story that deserved an award.
“It’s a story I don’t often see represented in the Australian media, on television, in film or in literature, even in journalism. So I find it really significant that a vision of this experience of growing up in residences and outside – Home care exists in the world and is being recognized. “
Down tells ABC Arts that he was surprised to win, due to the strength of this year’s final list, which includes two-time winner Michelle de Kretser and author Michael Mohammed Ahmad, who participated twice.
“It feels very special to be part of this particular list of people who do really exciting things,” Down says.
The list of finalists for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Prize
- The other half of you by Michael Mohammed Ahmad
- Scary monsters by Michelle de Kretser
- Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
- One hundred days of Alice Pung
- Grimmish by Michael Winkler
This year’s list is the first to feature more writers of color than writers of Anglo-Saxon descent. It also includes more women than men.
“It’s definitely a short list that suggests to me that things are changing a bit in what we have traditionally considered the canon of Australian literature,” he says.
A rewarding answer
Bodies of Light opens with Maggie, now called Holly, being contacted on Facebook by someone from her past who recognizes her in a viral photo:
“I became a new person a long time ago, and when I got that message, I didn’t think anyone was looking for who I was before.”
In ABC RN’s The Bookshelf, writer Patrick Carey says, “There were times when I had to leave the book and leave because it was facing in a very human way.”
From that moment on, Maggie begins to document her fractured past, gathering memories of a childhood in which she passes between foster homes and institutions, where she suffers abuse by the people in charge of caring for her.
Down tells ABC Arts that the most rewarding responses she received from readers were when those who left the care of the 70s and 80s contacted her to tell her that she had created something truthful in her experiences. .
“People will often say things like,‘ You made me feel visible ’or‘ You made me feel visible, ’” Down says.
“What a privilege for me to receive an email like this and to feel confident with someone telling me their story.”
As readers, we follow Maggie as she builds a new self throughout her life, with a large section dedicated to her as a newlywed living on Phillip Island, south of Victoria, where she suffers the loss of three children.
“If someone recognizes themselves or someone they love or know in this story, that’s all they could hope to convey,” Down says. (ABC Arts: Garry Trinh)
The careful interpretation of Maggie’s experiences was the product of years of research into out-of-home care, perinatal mental health, and parental infanticide, with Down analyzing academic articles, Supreme Court judgments, testimonies of abandoned people, transcripts of police interviews and government reports.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to search, up and down arrows for volume. Listening time: 53 minutes 42 seconds 53 minutes Listening: Jennifer Down on ABC RN’s The Book Show
While incorporating images and genuine emotions from this research, including wind chimes warning a child who cares about the approach of a predatory staff member, Down distrusted the deviant novel. towards voyeurism.
She says she wondered, “How can we witness someone’s suffering in a way that is not voyeuristic and that gives them agency and ownership of their story?
“I wanted her [Maggie] for being a character who asks the reader not to look away from him [her suffering]instead of explaining it out of a gloomy voyeuristic interest or another person’s excitement. “
To achieve this, he turned to fiction and non-fiction using first-person testimonies, including the work of Nobel Prize-winning Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich and French writer Annie Ernaux.
“Both Alexievich and Ernaux offer these examples of suffering [in a way that’s] almost objective, I think, the narrative of these traumas, and it really encourages you, as a reader, to put on the table your own experiences, memories, and emotions, ”says Down.
“Australian life in any of its phases”
As stated in the author’s will, the Miles Franklin Literary Prize aims to reward a novel “of the highest literary merit” that “presents[s] Australian life in any of its phases “.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to search, up and down arrows for volume. Listening time: 54 minutes 6 seconds54 m Get to know Miles Franklin’s 2022 list
Down stresses that while Bodies of Light presents a description of residential or family foster care in the 1970s and 1980s, systemic problems are ongoing.
“It would be foolish to think that growing up in prayer or foster care today is very different from what it was then, in terms of the various ways in which the system fails children and young people,” he says.
However, Down expects the book’s recognition to draw attention to the problem.
“There are ways to resolve this, and there are ways to ensure that young people are not subjected to the same cycles of abuse and trauma,” he says.
“I think for too long we just weren’t bothered or didn’t want to look at it, because it was too complicated or too painful.”
Down also hopes that people leaving care will have a chance to tell their own stories.
“There’s room for many more permutations and versions of its history,” he says.
One pulls
Down, who works as a copywriter, missed a call from Miles Franklin Judge Richard Neville while at work and initially thought it was his dentist.
When she called him and he gave her the news of her victory, she got on her knees “like a woman in an old movie.”
“I didn’t know that was a physiological response I would really have,” he says.
“I often feel like writing is a very small part of my life … There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance when you’re on a work call, and then you get this life-changing news. And then I just had to go back and continue to send emails to people all day to work “.
Down says he will spend much of the $ 60,000 prize directly on retirement, and set aside to buy a sleek vacuum cleaner.
Although he has always worked one day around his writing, these concerts have never been especially lucrative.
“I spent all my 20 years almost in financial precariousness. It’s such a deep relief, more than anything else, to know that at this point in my life … [I have] a little more stability and security, ”he says.
His long-term goal is to be able to afford to take six months off to walk the Appalachian Trail in the United States, from Georgia to Maine.
“I had never before been able to entertain the idea seriously [until now],” she says.
He is currently working on a novel that plays with ideas around sketch comedy and nonlinear narrative structure, and his research involves watching classic sketches on YouTube.
It is a relief of the weight of the matter of Light Bodies.
“It’s been fun doing a puddle on something that’s not as overwhelming to the soul as many of the …