Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlisted titles for 2016 are:

• Hope Farm (Peggy Frew, Scribe)
• Leap (Myfanwy Jones, A&U)
• Black Rock White City (A S Patric, Transit Lounge)
• Salt Creek (Lucy Treloar, Pan Macmillan)
• The Natural Way of Things (Charlotte Wood, A&U)

State Library of NSW Mitchell Librarian Richard Neville said on behalf of the judging panel: ‘The focus of this year’s shortlist is the creation, maintenance and manipulation of identity: the impact of its dislocation, the devastation of its theft, and the consequences of its re-imagination. The 2016 shortlist moves around colonial society, a dysfunctional late twentieth century and a disturbing future, all realised with divergent but consistently powerful voices.’