Creative Writing head on literary shortlist

The University of Adelaide's Head of Creative Writing, Professor Brian Castro, has been shortlisted for the prestigious 2010 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

His novel The Bath Fugues is one of six novels on this year's shortlist, with the winner to be decided in June.

Professor Castro said he was thrilled to be included on the Miles Franklin shortlist again. His last novel, The Garden Book, was also shortlisted.

"It's not an easy prize to win. I've been shortlisted twice before in my long writing career and each time the novel got close," Professor Castro said. "It all depends on the passions of the judging panel."

Professor Castro joined the University of Adelaide as Chair of Creative Writing in July 2008. He has worked in Australian, French and Hong Kong universities as a teacher and writer.

He is the author of nine novels and a volume of essays on writing and culture. His novels have won a number of state and national prizes including The Australian/Vogel Literary Award, The Age Fiction Prize, the National Book Council Prize for Fiction, four Victorian Premier's awards, two NSW Premier's awards and the Queensland Premier's Award for Fiction.

For many years he was the literary reviewer for Asiaweek magazine.

The Bath Fugues is three interwoven novellas centred on an aging art forger, a Portuguese poet and art collector who is also an opium addict, and a doctor who has built an art gallery in tropical Queensland.

The Miles Franklin Award judges said Castro was one of Australia's most dazzlingly challenging writers and that in The Bath Fugues "he is at home on the high wire".

"The Bath Fugues is a mature and uncompromising work by one of Australia's most prodigally gifted writers."

The Miles Franklin Literary Award is Australia's premier literary prize. It is awarded to the novel of the year considered to be of "the highest literary merit and which must present Australian life in any of its phases".

The Bath Fugues is published by Garimondo. For more information visit: www.giramondopublishing.com/the-bath-fugues

Story by Robyn Mills