Shankari Chandran receives the 2023 Miles Franklin Award.

The 2023 Miles Franklin literary award went to Shankari Chandran for Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, an intergenerational epic that confronts Australia’s tense relationship with multiculturalism and postcolonial trauma.

Recently, Chandran—a lawyer of Tamil ancestry—received the famous $60,000 prize. The judges appreciated Chandran’s third book, which takes place in a modern elderly care facility and is nominated for five “comic book Oscars.”

Popular writer Milan Kundera no more

According to Czech TV, the 94-year-old author Milan Kundera, well renowned for his masterpiece The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has passed away. Milan Kundera received appreciation for his ability to depict themes and people that deftly moved between the common reality of everyday life and the enormous cosmos of ideas. Humour and the complexity of the human condition are masterfully woven together in his dark, thought-provoking writings, which are well-known.