The Last Days of Ava Langdon by Leura’s Mark O’Flynn has made the coveted Miles Franklin shortlisting.
The Leura author is one of five writers now battling it out for Australia's most important literary prize valued at $60,000.
Mark O’Flynn’s fiction and poetry have been widely published in Australian journals as well as overseas. His novels include Grassdogs and The Forgotten World, and he has published five collections of poems, most recently The Soup’s Song. He has also published the comic memoir False Start and a collection of short fiction, White Light. His latest work is the story of a colourful Mountains recluse.
The Miles Franklin award, established in 1954 through the bequest of the My Brilliant Career author, is given to a novel that depicts "Australian life in any of its phases".
Mountains authors who have been recognised in the Miles Franklin include Tom Flood, who won it in 1990 for Oceana Fine, and Trevor Shearston, longlisted in 2014.
The 2017 winner will be announced on September 7.