Book prize judges have praised ‘ethical precision’ of Melburnian’s second novel, a poised unpacking of the horrors of institutional failure
Jennifer Down missed the call telling her she’d won the Miles Franklin. She was in a hotel room on a Zoom call for work, and rang back later with no idea of the news waiting for her. “I was quite speechless,” she tells Guardian Australia. “I was so shocked.” We get that a lot, the chair told her dryly.
Bodies of Light is the Melbourne writer’s second novel. Her debut and subsequent short story collection saw her named best young Australian novelist by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017 and 2018, and she’s been awarded several fellowships. But the 31-year-old is still processing the “immeasurable impact” of the $60,000 prize – the country’s richest literary award, alongside the Stella – on her writing life. It goes deeper than book sales and overseas readers, though both are now likely.
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