Brisbane author Siang Lu wins Miles Franklin for Ghost Cities novel
Readers who like ancient emperor doppelgangers and chess-playing robots won’t be disappointed when they read the latest book that won the 2025 Miles Franklin literary award.
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A Brisbane author has won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award for his compelling tale of ancient emperor doppelgangers, chess-playing robots and China’s creepy ghost cities.
Siang Lu’s Ghost Cities was awarded the $60,000 prize on Thursday.
The judges said in a statement: “Ghost Cities is a genuine landmark in Australian literature, reflecting the evolving spirit of Australian life.
“It redefines what Australian literature can be… sitting within a tradition in Australian writing that explores failed expatriation and cultural fraud.”
One judge told the awards ceremony at the State Library of NSW the book was strikingly new.
Lu, 39, was born in Malaysia to Chinese parents who were also Malaysian-born, his grandparents having been displaced by World War II.
Lu told The Australian he came to Australia at the age of four, settling in Brisbane.
“I am an Australian by citizenship, and I’m very comfortable here, but I did want to write about that feeling that many people have, of not quite belonging here, there or anywhere,” he said.
Ghost Cities holds multiple narratives, including one involving a young man who is fired from his job as a Chinese translator after being exposed for not knowing a single word of Chinese, simply relying on Google Translate.
He relocates to one of China’s ghost cities, opening new narratives including an ancient Emperor creating a thousand doubles of himself, a chess-playing humanoid robot keeping a dark secret, and a horny mountain gaining sentience.
The other shortlisted novels included Chinese Postman by Brian Castro, Compassion by Julie Janson, Dirt Poor Islanders by Winnie Dunn, Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane, and Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser.
The Miles Franklin Award – first awarded in 1957 – grants the author a $60,000 prize, adding them to a list of past winners including literary legends Peter Carey, Tim Winton and Alexis Wright.
Originally published as Brisbane author Siang Lu wins Miles Franklin for Ghost Cities novel
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