Comedian Steph Tisdell’s first novel tackles serious issues in this story of growing up in a First Nations family. Set in Brisbane, The Skin I’m In opens with Layla, the youngest daughter of a First Nations mother and a white father, getting ready...
Malcolm Knox’s new novel satirises the brutal madness of the Soviet Union, focussing on Stalin’s notorious head of secret police, Beria. In the business of producing fiction, the novelist can never keep up with authoritarian political leaders. Such...
In Claire Sutherland’s debut crime novel, a body is found on an isolated track on the Wimmera Plains, where Mount Arapiles towers over all. Anybody who has ever spent any time in the Wimmera around Gariwerd (the Grampians) in Victoria will know how...
László Krasznahorkai’s latest novel encompasses physics, the music of JS Bach, and an obsessive correspondence with the German chancellor. László Krasznahorkai enthusiasts won’t be surprised he’s written a 430-page novel comprising a...
Stephen Downes’ debut The Hands of Pianists was shortlisted for the PM’s Literary Awards. His second ranges across art, violence, folklore and mental illness. This is a strange book. Not just because the narrator is a violent criminal writing his...
Jodi Picoult’s latest novel reimagines Shakespeare and shows little has changed since the sixteenth century for women playwrights. ‘I believe we can help each other,’ Emilia said. ‘You wish for everyone to know your name; I wish for no one to...
