Named after the author of My Brilliant Career and established by her bequest, the annual Miles Franklin Literary Award is one of Australia’s most prestigious, valuable and popular fiction prizes. So what does it take to call yourself a Miles Franklin winner? We’ve crunched the data on every winner since the first in 1957, ahead of the announcement of this year’s award on Thursday afternoon. Be a man Twice as many men have won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, with men writing 41 of the winning novels and women writing 21 of them. However, the tide may be turning. Eight of the 21 women on the list have won in the past nine years.