The ‘gothic’ genre was once thought to be inapplicable to Australia. But there is a strong gothic tradition in Australian literature and film, seen in examples like Picnic at Hanging Rock.
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Gothic texts are not all bloodsucking vampires and howling werewolves. An Australian Gothic tradition took root alongside colonisation, influencing writers from Marcus Clarke to Alexis Wright.
Zahra Newman in Wake in Fright. A new adaptation of Kenneth Cook’s novel retells the story of a man’s descent into violent masculinity with a female voice, accompanied by visual and aural spectacle.
Pia Johnson
In a new adaptation of the classic Australian novel, the story of masculinity and despair in the outback is told through a female voice.
In the novel Coach Fitz, the narrator is seemingly unaware of his humorous voice. This device is one way that the novel subverts expectations.
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At the centre of the novel Coach Fitz is Tom, an anti-hero whose unintentionally humorous voice drives the narrative. Tom is an awkward everyman, a naïve Don Quixote, a digressive Tristam Shandy.
View from a highway rest stop east of Ravensthorpe, Western Australia. In Kim Scott’s Taboo, the landscape becomes a narrator.
Chris Fithall/flickr
The omniscient narrator is alive and well in fiction. Kim Scott’s most recent novel uses a collective narrative voice that encompasses the landscape as well as the human.
A retouched photo of Mary (Mollie) Dean from Sydney newspaper Truth (1 February 1931). Dean, who was murdered in Melbourne in 1930, was the subject of two Australian books published in 2018.
Public domain/The Conversation
True crime-related storytelling has shrugged off its former low-brow baggage. Two recent Australian books show how victims’ stories can be told sensitively and humanely.
Natalie Christie Peluso in The Children’s Bach. The opera is based on Helen Garner’s novella of the same name.
Peter Hislop
It is rare to have a new production of an Australian opera - a vivid new performance of The Children’s Bach was refreshing to see.
Cynthia Banham with Kevin Rudd in 2008. Banham’s memoir explores both the trauma she experienced during a plane crash in 2007 and her family’s history.
Dean Lewins/AAP
In her fragmentary family memoir, Cynthia Banham interweaves narratives of war and migration with her own traumatic plane crash - ultimately reclaiming her identity in the process.
Man Out of Time is an affecting portrait of a family rocked by the patriarchal figure’s long-term depression.
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Stephanie Bishop’s latest novel demonstrates a sophisticated approach to the relationship between time and narrative: novelists and aspiring writers would do well to look closely at her achievement.
Leigh Sales at a memorial service of journalist Mark Colvin in 2017. In her recent book, Sales demonstrates the importance of journalistic empathy and disclosure.
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Les Murray’s signature style was a potent mix of ordinary language, specialist vocabulary, and eccentric syntax. His poetry made us see things anew.
A collection of essays, personal stories, pictures and poetry reflects on the challenges for women who speak out about assault in the age of #MeToo.
Mihai Surdu/Shutterstock
A new anthology collects the voices of 35 contributors on #MeToo in Australia. The book wades into all the difficult areas, from sexual assault to the culture that enables it.
Vicki Laveau-Harvie has won the 2019 Stella Prize for her memoir The Erratics. With rare honesty, the book shatters expectations of what a mother should be.
Stella Prize
Debut memoir The Erratics possesses a rare honesty, exploding socially sanctioned ideas about mothers and families.
This year’s Stella Prize shortlist is difficult to sum up or pin down - but the experiences of young people are a recurring theme.
Stella Prize/The Conversation
The six books shortlisted for this year’s Stella prize cover diverse subject matter and make risky aesthetic choices; they are serious and thoroughly unsentimental.
Sue Smith’s play recreates wild years spent on the island of Hydra, which became an artist’s refuge.
Jeff Busby
A new play tells the story of George Johnston and Charmian Clift’s time on the Greek island of Hydra, which ultimately led to the novel My Brother Jack - but not without sacrifices.
George Stubbs, ‘The Kongouro from New Holland’ (1772), oil painting, detail of head.
Ashley Van Haeften/Wikimedia Commons
Scientists can be under-appreciated in Australian culture. Here are eight great fictional scientists to get you thinking about labs, test tubes and bold experiments.
In his new book The Rosie Result, author Graeme Simsion is not afraid to confront many of the issues surrounding perceptions of autism.
Rebecca Rocks
While tourism campaigns often portray the beach as an idyllic, isolated haven, many of our beach stories depict it as a darker, more complex place. Here are ten worth reading.
Gerald Murnane has long been recognised as one of Australia’s finest writers.
Ben Denham