Brisbane author Siang Lu wins 2025 Miles Franklin literary award

A novel about the Chinese diaspora in Australia, described as shimmering with satire, has won Brisbane author Siang Lu the Miles Franklin literary award.

First time author Siang Lu has won the prestigious $60,000 Miles Franklin literary award for his novel, Ghost Cities, described as “a genuine landmark in Australian literature”.

It was rejected more than 200 times, both in Australia and overseas, and stayed in a drawer unpublished for 10 years before Lu’s first novel The Whitewash was published.

Ghost Cities is about a young Chinese-Australian man who is fired from his translator job at the Chinese consulate after it is discovered he cannot speak Mandarin.

The deception goes viral on Chinese social media, with Xiang dubbed #BadChinese.

“Siang Lu’s Ghost Cities is at once a grand farce and a haunting meditation on diaspora,” the judges said.

Siang Lu has won the 2025 Miles Franklin Award. Picture: Supplied

Ghost Cities was unpublished for 10 years after 200 rejections.

“Sitting within a tradition in Australian writing that explores failed expatriation and cultural fraud, Lu’s novel is also something strikingly new.

“Shimmering with satire and wisdom, and with an absurdist bravura, Ghost Cities is a genuine landmark in Australian literature.”

On winning the award, Lu, 39, said he was “honoured beyond belief, and beyond words”.

“I didn’t dare dream of this. It didn’t seem possible.”

Lu, who is of Chinese-Malaysian descent, moved with his family moved from Malaysia to Brisbane in the 1990s when he was four.

The 2025 judging panel comprised Richard Neville, Jumana Bayeh, Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Prof Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, and author, Prof Hsu-Ming Teo.

The Miles Franklin literary award was established in the will of My Brilliant Career author, Stella Miles Franklin, for the “advancement, improvement and betterment of Australian literature”.

Perpetual serves as Trustee for the Award.