Omar Musa’s Miles Franklin win rewards epic, ambitious Australian writing with a global scope

Omar Musa has won the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award for Fierceland, an energetic, formally adventurous novel that confirms his place as one of the most ambitious voices in contemporary Australian literature. The prize recognises a work that stretches the possibilities of the contemporary Australian novel, while remaining deeply engaged with questions of history, identity and the enduring legacies of empires. Fierceland combines the sweep of an epic with the formal playfulness of…