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Keywords: Literature

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Nam Le's 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem

    • Peter Craven
    • 05 April 2024
    1 Comment

    Nam Le is one of the strangest writers in the history of Australian literature and is also one of the most incandescently brilliant — which is very weird if you bear in mind that his primary claim to legendary status is a book of short fiction published in 2008. With 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, Le returns with a new work that encapsulates the brilliance and complexity that fans and critics have come to expect.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Reading the places we know

    • Julian Butler
    • 29 January 2024
    2 Comments

    In fiction, place often feels secondary. But when place comes alive in writing, it is a delight. When it’s a place that has shaped you, or continues to shape you, then your own mythology expands.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Lost boy in a land of terror and beauty

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 25 January 2024

    Thoughtful and thought-provoking, Fiona McFarlane's The Sun Walks Down asks of the reader: Is art more important than life? What is the nature of courage? How should an individual relate to their own environment?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Six books to read this summer

    • Sarah Klenbort
    • 20 December 2023
    1 Comment

    Summer is upon us, and with it — I hope — the reading season. So here are my top reads from the last two years (and one that feels relevant from 2014). What are your recommendations for summer reads?  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Who loves longer? In conversation with Richard Flanagan

    • Michael McGirr
    • 01 December 2023
    2 Comments

    Flanagan’s new book, Question 7, a beautiful and profound reading experience. It is a deeply personal memoir, a net woven from many threads. It traces the fine lines that link stories across time and around the world.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    To be Frank: In conversation with Catharine Lumby

    • Barry Gittins
    • 24 November 2023

    Catharine Lumby was a friend and beneficiary of Moorhouse’s mentoring and advice, and before his death, was approached by him to write a warts-and-all uncensored biography. In Frank Moorhouse: A Life, Lumby explores the life of this man of letters in all of its colour and contradiction. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Literature's power is in self not identity

    • Mark Tredinnick
    • 31 August 2023
    3 Comments

    Amid shifting perceptions and the fluidity of names, our understanding of self  dances on the edge of subjectivity. Traversing the landscape of literature, we're invited to confront our own reflections, to ask what truly defines us in a world that is ever-evolving, and to look beyond the obvious and into the heart of our shared human experience.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Censorship in the age of social media

    • Sarah Klenbort
    • 01 August 2023
    5 Comments

    When a comedic story is withdrawn from a literary contest for referencing Putin, it bears reflecting on various shades of censorship. In an interconnected world where social media storms can shape the narrative, what does freedom of speech mean for writers today?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Undeterred by Kondo, let your library overflow

    • Philip Harvey
    • 20 July 2023
    6 Comments

    It's all very well to remove excess furniture, but furniture is not books. How many chairs does one need? Chairs are not books. To reduce a library as a household expedience is to objectify the books. Their contents are emptied of value, their history relegated to out-of-date. They have no more meaning than books in an Ikea display room. (From 2019)

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bridging histories: In conversation with Tony Birch

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 23 June 2023
    1 Comment

    Renowned author and academic Tony Birch is known for his insightful and compelling narrative explorations into societal issues like marginalisation, Aboriginal identity and racial struggles. In conversation with Paul Mitchell, Birch discusses his work, the unique intersection of academia and creative writing, and the profound impact of historical dispossession.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The disquieting lessons of Ian McEwan

    • Peter Craven
    • 14 June 2023

    Ian McEwan's Lessons marked a sharp twist in a five-decade literary career, and presents an opportunity to reflect on his expansive body of work. The one-time literary rogue and Booker laureate now stands as the unquestioned doyen of modern English fiction, his audacious work perpetually navigating undercurrents of unease.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The magic of Dessaix's Abracadabra

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 28 April 2023
    2 Comments

    While our lives plod along in an ordinary groove, the great writers astound us and lift us on to another plane. The state of reading, Dessaix believes, is one of intense attention: in every true reading of literature in adult life, we revert to that early attitude of plasticity and innocence before the text.

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