Rejected 200+ times, Ghost Cities wins major book prize
After Brisbane writer Siang Lu rejected more than 200 publishers, he won the Miles Franklin Literature Award for his funny novel Ghost Cities.
And the 39 -year -old writer does not joke when he said he had won a $ 60,000 prize after being short -list for the first time.
“I just sat down and actually lost all the feeling in my hands and legs and lost my voice,” he said.
“For the first time in my life, I had to ask someone from someone, I wouldn’t tell me I didn’t imagine.”
The most prestigious literary award of Australia was announced on Thursday night with a ceremony in Sydney and announced that LU had finished manuscripts for ghost cities ten years ago in 2015, but was rejected 200 times by Australia and overseas publishers.
“In the past, I was suppressing them in the glass compartment between my office and my bedroom, and Blus grew so much that I couldn’t see it through the glass anymore,” he said.
Finally, the winning book, which was published by Queensland University Publications, was defined by critics as both intellectual and zany and was shortly listed for at least seven books.
Miles Franklin is of course the group’s choice, and Lu says that his winning works not only financially, but also in terms of recognizing the quality of his work.
The ghost cities were inspired by the megasites built in China during the country’s real estate burst, most of them remained deserted and fell into ruins.
He is one -tongue, including a young man who is fired as a translator at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, and rely on Google Translate.
There is also a chess vending vending and an old emperor who created thousands of copies of a secret.
As he hit the shelves in 2024, he found that he defined it as a perverted joy in chatting with his readers as he tried to predict what the ghost cities actually say.
The answer is less complex than readers can imagine: “trying to be funny” promises.
The 2025 short list dominated the senior Brian Castro, which made the short list four times, and color writers, including Michelle de Kretser, who won twice.
The six writers for Miles Franklin receive $ 5,000 from the Cultural Fund of the Copyright Agency.
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