AustLit

'Bodies of Light, the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner, is a novel of contradictions. It is emotionally difficult to read, and yet the chapters fly by so quickly that one would swear it was a novella rather than a respectable tome of more than four hundred pages. Maggie's unrelenting pain paints a profoundly despondent world, and yet her dignified resilience leaves the afterimage of hope. The story revolves around deep connections to others, and yet its thesis suggests an inability to know another person. Jennifer Down has crafted a tale we cannot easily process or dismiss.' (Introduction)