Michelle de Kretser's book Questions of Travel wins Miles Franklin award Miles Franklin Literary Awards winner Michelle de Kretser (centre) with shortlist finalists Carrie Tiffany and Romy Ash. Picture: James Croucher Source: HWT Image Library A NOVEL about the plight of asylum seekers and the effects of tourism has won Australia's most prestigious literary prize. Sri-Lankan born Sydneysider Michelle de Kretser took out the $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her fourth book, Questions of Travel. The book, which is set in Sri Lanka and Australia, pipped the hot favourite, Mateship with Birds by Melbourne-based Carrie Tiffany. Questions of Travel was also given the nod ahead of the three other shortlisted works; debut novelist Romy Ash's Floundering, Annah Faulkner's The Beloved and Drusilla Modjeska's The Mountain. The $60,000 prize was presented at the National Library of Australia in Canberra on Wednesday (June 19). De Krester, who was educated in Melbourne after emigrating with her family from Sri Lanka at the age of 14, was not present at the award ceremony and her publisher accepted on her behalf. This was the first year in the prize's 56-year history to have an entirely female shortlist. The Miles Franklin Literary Award was established with proceeds from the estate of My Brilliant Career author, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, to support and encourage authors of Australian literature.