Tasmanian author Amanda Lohrey has won the $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her seventh novel, The Labyrinth - praised by the judges as "a beautifully written reflection on the conflicts between parents and children, men and women, and the value and purpose of creative work".
In The Labyrinth, hotel receptionist Erica Marsden moves from Sydney to a small town on the south coast of New South Wales to be closer to her son Daniel, a mentally disturbed artist who is serving a life sentence for homicidal negligence.
As she looks for a suitable house to buy, she is guided by a mission sent to her in a dream: to build a labyrinth, defined in the book as "a single path that leads in a convoluted unravelling to its centre, and back out again".
But it's fundamentally a novel about hope and resilience.
Lohrey has been longlisted three times and shortlisted twice for the award. The Labyrinth is her seventh novel.
The Labyrinth was selected from a shortlist that included Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga, emerging talent and fellow Tasmanian Robbie Arnott, expatriate writer Daniel Davis Wood, and first-time novelists Andrew Pippos and Madeleine Watts.
See the full shortlist and more information at Miles Franklin Literary Award.
Robyn
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