Anna Funder’s All That I Am wins Miles Franklin

SBS pic of Anna Funder: Here

Anna Funder’s All That I Am has had a dream run since publication, winning prizes and racing out of bookshops.

Now Funder’s debut novel has added Australia’s most significant prize to the long list of critical praise for the book, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award last night.

The $50,000 prize was presented at Queensland’s State Library last night, the first time the Miles has been declared in Brisbane and only the second time the ceremony has been held outside of Sydney.

All That I Am was given the nod ahead of four other shortlisted works; Blood, by first-time novelist Tony Birch; 2000 winner Frank Moorhouse’s Cold Light; debut writer Favel Parrett’s Past the Shallows; and Foal’s Bread – the return to publication by Gillian Mears after 16 years.

Already a staple of Australia’s bestseller lists, All That I Am has been lavished with praise, winning a swag of literary awards.

Last month Funder’s fiction debut won the Book of the Year and Literary Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards as well as the 2012 Barbara Jefferis Award, having already picked up the Independent Bookseller’s Award for Best Debut Fiction and the Indie Book of the Year.

The novel tells the story of an elderly Sydney woman’s role in the opposition to Hitler and the Nazi Party in the years leading up to World War II.

It was inspired by the experiences of one of Funder’s friends who spent years in solitary confinement for trying to smuggle anti-Nazi leaflets into Germany.

The judges praised the book for reminding readers of Australias long history of experiences with exile, dislocation and removal.

The recognition for All That I Am follows Funder’s internationally acclaimed nonfiction work Stasiland, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2004.

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