Literature
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Minimalist poet Antigone Kefala wins the Patrick White Award for her contribution to Australian literature
She is a most deserving winner by all the terms of that prize. Elizabeth McMahon The Conversation White established the…
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Writer Charmian Clift, her biographer and one surprising, Aussie-linked Greek island
Decades later, at the launch of a Greek translation of the book Clift wrote there, her biographer finds those intriguing…
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Nobel Prize in literature: Annie Ernaux – an uncompromising author who writes from experience
It is a fictionalised account of her illegal abortion ten years earlier, as a student gradually moving away from a…
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Hilary Mantel was one of the great voices of historical fiction – and so much more
She will be chiefly remembered for her trilogy on the life of the Tudor politician Thomas Cromwell. Dinah Birch The Conversation…
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Five books you’ll like if you love The Odyssey
The poem, which tells of Odysseus’ return from the Trojan War, is both the origin of our concept of nostalgia…
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Book Week: it’s not the costume that matters, but falling in love with reading
Do we have an old white dress my niece could borrow for a Book Week costume for school? Joanne O’Mara…
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The Reclusive Giant of Australian Letters
Gerald Murnane’s new book, billed as his last, surveys the rest of his output. Merve Emre The NewYorker 0n most…
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NoViolet Bulawayo’s new novel is an instant Zimbabwean classic
Through this she explores what happens when an authoritarian regime implodes, using characters who are horses, pigs, dogs, cows, cats,…
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‘Can you come to my party?’: What it’s like to have your novel studied at schools
For Maxine Beneba Clarke, the excitement of being included on school reading lists was quickly matched by the realities of…
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The tug of the tale: Steven Carroll reimagines the life and times of T.S. Eliot and his first wife, Vivienne
Steven Carroll’s new novel, Goodnight, Vivienne, Goodnight, sympathetically reimagines the life of Vivienne Haigh-Wood, Eliot’s first wife, and reflects on…
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How to understand your grief through writing
Losing a family member at such a time can bring with it an added level of grief. Catherine Cole The…
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Holiday reading: Five picks from a great year for African writing
South Africa’s Damon Galgut lifted the Man Booker Prize for his novel, The Promise, and exciting prose continued to sprout.…
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Booker Prize won by South African writer Damon Galgut for The Promise
The 57-year-old, who has been shortlisted twice previously, won the 50,000-pound ($91,783) prize against a shortlist that included Pulitzer Prize winner Richard…
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Guide to the classics: Euripides’ The Trojan Women – an unflinching look at the brutality of war
Extensive narratives of the war are told in the oral traditions of myth and literature, and they also appear very…
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The best new books to read in October as selected by avid readers and critics
Each month, we’ll present a shortlist of new releases read and recommended by The Bookshelf’s Kate Evans and The Book…
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Abdulrazak Gurnah wins the 2021 Nobel prize in literature
The Nobel prize in literature has been awarded to the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the…
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