MILES FRANKLIN AWARD 2012 - ANNA FUNDER

All That I Am by Anna Funder was awarded the Miles Franklin for 2012. Here is an excerpt from her acceptance speech.

Tonight we celebrate fiction. We celebrate our joy and wonder at the inner workings of our nation, and ourselves. We celebrate by holding our mirror – all our disparate mirrors – up to this world; to its beauty, its mysteries, its cruelties:
To babies who besott us and one-armed bandits who fleece us,
To fat mining magnates and fleet-footed Opposition leaders,
To floor-crossers and cross-dressers,
To re-tried Dingos.
To photographers and pornographers,
To streetpeople and shockjocks;
To footballers – and fading, fork-tongued feminists;
To stolen children and newly discovered planets;
To Pygmy people and human mules;
To cloud-seeding, to coke-snorting racehorses;
To islands drowning and children being born;
To being left, to being found;
To stopping time.
Writing is a work of ingenious empathy. It is work of compassion as holy as any we are likely to find. We can’t afford not to have it.

Congratulations Anna Funder.