The author from Queanbeyan in NSW took six years and 21 drafts to write his second novel Fierceland, and said he never expected his efforts to be so recognised. Their family's wealth was built on the palm oil trade and the novel deals with colonialism, capitalism and the destruction of Borneo's rainforests. He was nervous Fierceland might romanticise or oversimplify Borneo, an island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. It's estimated Malaysian Borneo has more than 80 native languages and Musa found people who spoke 16 of those tongues to include various translations of the one poem in Fierceland. But Musa sees novels, in particular, as a radical way of creating empathy, because readers enter into the thinking of characters different to themselves.