Benang
Encyclopedia
Benang is a 1999 Miles Franklin Award
winning novel by Australia
n author Kim Scott
. The award was shared with Drylands by Thea Astley
.
Reviewing the novel for The Hindu
, K. Kunhikrishnan wrote:
Miles Franklin Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize for the best Australian ‘published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin , who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career ...
winning novel by Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n author Kim Scott
Kim Scott
Kim Scott is an Australian novelist of Indigenous Australian ancestry. He is a descendant of West Australian Noongar people.- Biography :...
. The award was shared with Drylands by Thea Astley
Thea Astley
Thea Astley was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin Awards, Australia's major literary award, than any other writer...
.
Reviewing the novel for The Hindu
The Hindu
The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
, K. Kunhikrishnan wrote:
- "For writing his second novel Benang Kim Scott conducted research for five years, tracing his family history through welfare files and from a diversity of sources. He confirmed that the novel was "inspired by research into his family and my growing awareness of the context of that family history". The novel is hence an imaginative blend of fact and fiction and archival documentation to explore in historical and emotional terms the shameful history of the White treatment of Australian aboriginal people without didacticism and bitterness or moral propaganda. It makes compelling reading, as it is a moving depiction of cultural oppression and the resilience of the Nyoongar people from the time of first contact with the White colonial power."
Awards
- The Kate Challis RAKA Award, Creative Prose, 2001: winner
- Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2000: joint winner
- Western Australian Premier's Book AwardsWestern Australian Premier's Book AwardsThe Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an award for books, scripts, digital narrative and a People's Choice. Awards are provided by the Government of Western Australia, and the awards process is managed by the State Library of Western Australia...
, Fiction Award, 1999: winner