Alex Miller

Biography

Alex Miller is best known for his fiction writing which demonstrates his profound insight into the human condition. He has been hailed as the most deeply philosophical of contemporary Australian novelists. Miller’s work has long been celebrated in Australia, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1993 for ‘The Ancestor Game’ (1992) and again in 2003 for ‘Journey to the Stone Country’ (2002), regarded as one of the most insightful examinations of relations between Aboriginal and white Australians on both a personal and political level. Miller achieved international recognition with his third novel, ‘The Ancestor Game’, a complex, wide-ranging historical work which moves in space and time between China, Germany and Australia, through the 1840s to the 1970s. His work continues to attract critical acclaim, with ‘Landscape of Farewell’ (2007) receiving the 2008 Manning Clark House National Cultural Award. ‘Lovesong’ (2009) won the 2010 Age Book of the Year Award Fiction Prize and the Book of the Year Prize, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the People’s Choice Award at the 2011 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards. His new novel ‘Autumn Laing’ was published in 2011 and he was awarded the prestigious Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2012.

Photo by John Tsiavis