Marlon James, who this week became the first Jamaican to win the Man Booker Prize, represents a new generation of Caribbean novelists.
Neil Hall/Reuters
Marlon James won the Booker Prize this week with a book that focuses on the unrest and violence of 1970s Jamaica, a troubled chapter that continues to shape the island nation’s present - and its future.
Every year thousands of students read George Orwell’s 1984 and are doubtless convinced that its perspective on language and power is “definitive”. Except that it’s not; and hasn’t been since at least the 1970s.
Manuel Harlan/Melbourne Festival
Many still regard George Orwell’s 1984 and its message about the nature of language and power “definitive”. But globalisation has revolutionised how we communicate; 1984 tells us nothing about our future.
A new study examines the responses of Australian authors, publishers and readers to global changes in the contemporary publishing environment.
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A study into the responses of Australian authors, publishers and readers to global changes in the contemporary publishing environment suggests authors are being innovative, but financial rewards can be elusive.
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Anne Tyler’s Booker short-listed novel is an exquisite meditation on family life.
Hanya Yanagihara.
© Jenny Westerhoff
Male friendship is often overlooked in the 20th-century novel, but in her Booker short-listed novel Yanagihara places it centre.
Gender plays a role in what you read for courses.
COD Newsroom
Female scholars tend to assign more readings from women authors. But then male instructors assign more of their own work.
Chigozie Obioma.
© Zach Mueller
Obioma’s novel struggles to get going, then splutters and stalls to an unimpressive conclusion.
Claudia Rankine, winner of the Forward Prize.
Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters
Claudia Rankine, winner of the Forward Prize, has provoked discussions about poetry and race in the US. Why are these conversations not happening in the UK?
Sunjeev Sahota.
© Simon Revill
Sahota’s Booker shortlisted novel is acutely intelligent and very of the moment. It may well take the prize.
Magda Szubanski in one of her most famous roles - Sharon Strzelecki - in Kath and Kim, with actors Gina Riley, Peter Rowsthorn, Glenn Robbins and Jane Turner.
Paul Jeffers/AAP
Magda Szubanski’s engaging debut memoir, Reckoning, is an exercise in precisely that: reconciling the past. It is also a celebration of the life and career of one of our greatest comedians.
Taken from Daniël Heinsius’ Emblemata Amatoria (1601)
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From princes to pornographers, emblem books wowed 16th century Europe with their coded meditations on the meaning of life.
Bob Marley in 1981.
PA/PA Archive
Marlon James’s book is a whirlwind of different voices ostensibly about the infamous failed assassination of Bob Marley in 1976.
Fanfiction: all it takes is to imagine a story beyond the canonical work.
Kristina Alexanderson/flickr
Fanfiction is nebulous, confusing and often mocked. It’s also explosively popular. So what is it?
STUDIOCANAL
The latest version of Macbeth is stunningly cinematic and vehemently Scottish.
Is everything written by an Australian automatically “Australian writing”?
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Michael Robotham is the second Australian writer to win the Golden Dagger, but is his book Australian? And does it matter?
Banned Books Week highlights books that have been challenged or permanently removed from library shelves.
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While legal precedent makes banning books difficult, it still happens.
Since 1982, over 11,000 books have been challenged by individuals seeking to have them banned from schools or libraries.
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When only six people showed up for a panel designed to raise awareness of banned books, the pot needed to be stirred a bit.
A rescue worker battling a bushfire in South Australia, 2015.
Department of Fire and Emergency Services/AAP
In a world full of catastrophe, what good are books? Specifically, can books be written to do good?
Can learning to write about sex help young people navigate their love lives?
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Sex is part of young people’s lives. So how do we teach young authors to navigate tricky narrative waters when they write about it?
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Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island is certainly an epoch-defining novel, at least inasmuch as it revolves around the task of defining our epoch.