SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

A self-published novel by Michael Winkler joins Alice Pung, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Michelle de Kretser and Jennifer Down to compete for $60,000

A self-published book has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin for the first time in the award’s 65-year history, with Michael Winkler’s cult hit Grimmish clearing the final hurdle before Australia’s most prestigious literary prize is announced on 20 July.

Announced on Thursday evening, Grimmish joins Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Other Half of You, Michelle de Kretser’s Scary Monsters, Jennifer Down’s Bodies of Light and Alice Pung’s One Hundred Days to compete for the $60,000 prize.

Winkler’s “exploded nonfiction novel” Grimmish was called “wearisome” and “repellent” by the publishers he approached, according to the author’s interview with Guardian Australia last week: “Everyone said there was no way they could sell it.”

But the book – an experimental, meta, kind-of-biography of the boxer Joe Grim, which opens with a faux-review and disputes itself throughout – found its way to readers through indie bookshops, exultant critics and word of mouth. It also won praise from writers including Helen Garner, Murray Bail and JM Coetzee.

In their comments accompanying the Miles Franklin shortlist, the judges described it as an “unusual novel that is by turns playful, funny, heartfelt and deeply reflective … Daring and hilarious, Grimmish is a uniquely witty and original contribution to Australian literature.”

Also shortlisted is Michelle de Kretser’s Scary Monsters, a book that is actually two books, with a different cover on each side that you can read in either order. De Kretser is one of Australia’s most celebrated authors, and won the Miles Franklin in 2013 (Questions of Travel) and 2018 (The Life to Come). The judges described Scary Monsters, her seventh novel, as “a witty, meticulously witnessed and boldly imaginative work that rages against racism, ageism and misogyny”.