Literature and Politics

Literary prizes play an important role in determining which texts or authors we consider to have literary value.  Prize-winning has become increasingly important for novels in the media-saturated environment of today’s globalised, chronoscopic world. The recognition that comes with being selected for a prize helps to elevate a book to the status of a literary work, earmarking it for larger print-runs that keep it available for the public and for further study by literary critics. Prizes are also an important indicator of whose voices are privileged in terms of defining and narrating the story of the nation-state. This close association of literary prizes with national pride can be seen with the Miles Franklin Award, which was established with the aim of celebrating ‘Australian character and creativity’, and of nurturing ‘the continuing life of literature about Australia’.

These clearly stated aims, of furthering national pride and awarding Australian excellence, make it all the more surprising that very little discussion or debate surrounded the nomination of Matthew Kneale’s novel English Passengers in 2001. This was the first ever nomination of a work by a non-Australian writer, but Kneale’s presence on the shortlist barely raised a whisper within Australia. The administrators of the prize simply explained their decision by stating that ‘there was nothing in the conditions to preclude a non-Australian winning the prize.’ In this paper I will argue that Kneale’s nomination raises important questions about the changing role of national identity in the contemporary world. Was his nomination made possible by the late twentieth-century trends towards trans-nationalism, and is it a sign of our growing acceptance of cosmopolitan world-citizens?  Or does it suggest that Australia still has not broken with its ties to the mother country of Britain?