Alexis Wright wins the Miles Franklin Literary Award, again

Alexis Wright has now won both the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and the Stella Prize, both of which are named for Stella Miles Franklin, twice.

Alexis Wright has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Praiseworthy, while Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional is on the Booker Prize longlist. Picture: AAP

A brilliant career? Alexis Wright is absolutely having one.

Wright was named the winner of the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award on Thursday for her epic novel, Praiseworthy.

The same book had already won this year’s Stella Prize.

In receiving the prize, Wright becomes the only writer to have won both of those awards, twice (both are named for Stella Miles Franklin, who wrote My Brilliant  Career).

It took Wright nearly 10 years to write Praiseworthy. In an interview with The Australian’s Rosemary Neill, which appeared in the Books pages of The Weekend Australian, she said she occasionally contemplated “destroying the manuscript”.

The 73-year-old, who had what she described as a “rudimentary” school education in outback Queensland, told Neill: “I like to challenge myself. I think I’ve been challenged all through my life. You put your heart and soul into what you’re doing and hopefully it’ll all work out in the end. It’s a hell of a lot to try and make the whole thing work”.

Praiseworthy has now won both the Stella and the Miles Franklin.

Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Perpetual, which serves as trustee of the Miles Franklin on behalf of the estate of Stella Miles Franklin, said they were “thrilled to announce Alexis Wright as the winner, as she joins a distinguished group of two-time winners, including Michelle de Kretser, Kim Scott, Thomas Keneally and Patrick White”.

Alexis first won the Miles Franklin in 2007 for her novel, Carpentaria. She said: “To win a Miles Franklin a second time is monumental. I wanted to make Praiseworthy a big book in more ways than one. I wanted to capture the spirit of our times”.

News of Wright’s win came just a day after Australian writer Charlotte Wood made the longlist for the Booker Prize for her novel, Stone Yard Devotional (Allen & Unwin).

Wood won the Stella for The Natural Way of Things in 2016. Her new novel follows a woman who escapes her marriage and ­enters a nunnery.

In a review for The Australian, critic Gretchen Shirm said: “In this extraordinary novel, everything resonates and becomes meaningful. Even the mice plague, apparently a freak event, allows Wood to explore the ­unpleasantness that lies hidden beneath the surface of everyday existence”.

Wood is the first Australian to be longlisted for the Booker Prize since J.M. Coetzee in 2016 (he won the Booker in 1983 and again in 1999, before he was an Australian citizen).

The first Australian to win the Booker was Thomas Keneally in 1982. Richard Flanagan won it in 2014. Peter Carey is the only Australian to have won the Booker twice. No Australian woman has ever won it, although some have made the shortlist, including Shirley Hazzard, Michelle de Kretser, and Kate Grenville.