2020 MILES FRANKLIN WINNER.

Typical, the one book that I did not get to in the shortlist goes on and wins the 2020 Miles Franklin Award. Congratulations to Tara June Winch who won the award with her novel "The Yield".

I thought that the shortlist was a very strong list this year, enjoying every book that I read, and thinking that each one had a chance of winning.

Here is a synopsis of the novel -

Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind.

August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather’s death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land – a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.

Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.

Tara's biography -

Tara June Winch is an Australian (Wiradjuri) author. Her first novel, Swallow the Air won several literary awards. In 2008, she was mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. After The Carnage, her second book was published in 2016 to critical acclaim. Her third, The Yield, was first published in 2019, to commercial and critical success and took out three prizes including Book of the Year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. She resides in France with her family.