Helena Bonham Carter in the film Suffragette.
Steffan Hill/Focus Features/AAP
A novel about first-wave feminists cleverly critiques the movement’s privilege. The first fiction from Nakkiah Lui’s imprint highlights uncomfortable truths. And a debut about teen girls is ‘too naive’.
The Otago (1884).
State Library of Queensland. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Gail Jones has written a richly evocative novel that warrants attention, both for its fascinating subject-matter and for its outstanding writerly qualities.
The 1802 Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot was part of Napoléon’s effort to retake Haiti − then known as Saint-Domingue − and reestablish slavery in the colony.
Wikimedia Commons
Leaving out the history of Napoléon’s brutal subjugation of Haiti is akin to making a movie about Hitler without mentioning the Holocaust.
Zadie Smith has dipped her toe into the world of historical fiction with The Fraud.
DPA Picture Alliance/Alamy/Penguine
This well-researched book brings to life the odd case of Sir Roger Tichborne and those around him.
Dolly Maunder.
Text Publishing
Family memoir and reimagined history dovetail beautifully in Kate Grenville’s latest novel.
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Nolan’s production.
Universal Pictures
Christopher Nolan’s film is the latest of many portrayals of the famous theoretical physicist. Here are five of the most intriguing.
Granata68/Shutterstock.
Six of the best books from 2023 to read this summer.
claudia soraya m w sirVs unsplash.
Tara Calaby’s novel peeps into the interior lives of women in a 19th-century asylum and uses her historical imagination to generate new knowledge.
From left Neo Magagula, Ntando Zondi, Senzo Radebe and Sibonile Ngubane in the forthcoming South African TV series Shaka iLembe.
Courtesy Mzansi Magic
Shaka iLembe hits TV screens on 18 June. The Zulu leader has never been portrayed as a real man - hopefully this time he will be.
Wikimedia Commons
Michael Meehan’s An Ungrateful Instrument is a vivid, lively novel drawing on the history of French music.
Gail Jones.
Photo by Heike Steinweg
Salonika Burning, set on the first world war’s eastern front, grapples with the question of how to represent the loss and absurdity of war.
Flinders Ranges, South Australia.
Megan Clark/Unsplash
Fiona McFarlane’s ‘masterful, complicated’ novel explores the exploitative nature of storytelling. She asks us to consider the truth of the tales we tell about ourselves and our identities.
Portrait of John Mitchel (1848).
Public domain
The question behind Tom Keneally’s latest novel is how a political idealist striving for his country’s freedom could end up supporting slavery.
Lucrezia de Medici – Alessandro Allori (1560).
Public domain
A fictional portrayal of Lucrezia de’ Medici imagines the inner life of a tragic historical figure, but effaces the true complexity of her situation.
PA Images / Alamy
A short guide to the Wolf Hall author’s remarkably varied back catalogue.
The Triumph of Death - Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1592).
Public domain
The Gothic horrorshow of Ottessa Moshfegh’s latest novel has sharply divided critical opinion.
An anonymous 15th century painting of Isabella and Richard II.
Wikimedia Commons
When Stephanie Trigg was a young reader, The Gentle Falcon, set in 1396, introduced her to the beauty and danger of the medieval world.
Nimblefoot, winner of the 1870 Melbourne Cup.
State Library of Victoria
A blend of fact and fiction, Nimblefoot imagines the life of a long forgotten Australian sporting hero.
Geraldine Brooks.
Hachette.
The Pulitzer Prize winning writer’s latest novel, based on the true story of a champion thoroughbred, represents historical fiction at its best.
Sotnikov Misha/ Shutterstock
A new historical novel, redolent of the masterful writing of Henry James and Charlotte Brontë, explores the themes of loss, alienation and displacement.