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Peter Rose

Peter Rose

In 2001 Peter Rose became the Editor of Australian Book Review. Previously he was a publisher at Oxford University Press throughout the 1990s. He has published several books of poetry, a family memoir, Rose Boys, and two novels, the most recent being Roddy Parr (Fourth Estate, 2010). He edited the 2007 and 2008 editions of The Best Australian Poems (Black Inc.). His newest book of poems is Rag (Gazebo Books, 2023). Peter Rose’s long experience in publishing and the literary world complements the magazine’s history of central involvement in Australian letters.

'The circuiteers', a new poem by Peter Rose

May 2021, no. 431 26 April 2021
Day flicks its cards, laconic.Even in April, a flamboyance of colour:stray perfume for the pent. Burnt leavesdrift away one by one, like concert-goersafter interval. High and handsomeloom the houses, forlorn, dogless even.No one frolics on a lawn.Merriment is shadowplay, happenstance.Yet we build new ones, colonies of selves.Czars of concrete lay their riddling floorslistening to songs of the eigh ... (read more)

'Editorial' by Peter Rose

May 2001, no. 230 01 May 2001
Now is the season of shortlisted content! In recent weeks, so many awards have been decided – or at least shortlisted – that ABR would need a supplement to list them all. Awards, everyone knows, have their limitations and anomalies, but few people would object to the highlighting of writers’ latest works or the supplementing of their often modest incomes. One first novel that has attracted n ... (read more)

'Editorial' by Peter Rose

September 2001, no. 234 01 September 2001
‘A pox on the GST!’ wrote one of our many new readers last month when filling in her subscription form. ABR has long been famous for its feisty correspondence (never more so than last month). This editor is not about to disagree with our new subscriber. The imposition of GST on books and magazines surely rates as one of the crasser political acts in recent years. Anyone unsure of its effect on ... (read more)

Peter Rose reviews 'Dear B' by Jennifer Harrison

July 1999, no. 212 01 July 1999
Since the publication in 1995 of her first collection, Michelangelo’s Prisoners, Jennifer Harrison has continued to impress readers and to broaden her repertoire. Her fourth collection in as many years, the intimately entitled Dear B, consolidates her reputation and demonstrates sufficient difference and intensity to satisfy admirers of this sensitive, likeable poet. ... (read more)

'The Sound and the Fury: Uneasy times for hacks and critics' by Peter Rose

December 2004–January 2005, no. 267 01 December 2004
My theme is the mixed and contentious business of reviewing: its influence, its limitations, its present condition in what we like to call our literary culture. I will largely confine my remarks to the literary pages of our newspapers and magazines. I don’t propose to comment on the learned journals – or criticism at monograph length issuing from the academy. (Not, sadly, that there is much of ... (read more)

Peter Rose reviews 'Sunrise West' by Jacob G. Rosenberg

October 2007, no. 295 01 October 2007
Gunther Grass, in his suave and controversial memoirs, Peeling the Onion (Harvill Secker, 2007, trans. Michael Henry Heim), rehearses many of the modern autobiographer’s qualms about the biddability of memory. Grass, with his long history of attacking other Germans’ wartime activities while concealing his own service in the Tenth SS Armoured Division, has every incentive to question the memoir ... (read more)

'Dishonouring our writers' by Peter Rose

March 2008, no. 299 01 March 2008
Each year on Australia Day, newspaper readers disinter their magnifying glasses and begin to inch down the columns of this year’s national honours like proofreaders at a gala ball. And each list produces its surprises, its gratifications and its absurdities. Normally, ABR doesn’t concern itself overmuch with prizes and such. Laurels grow like grapes in this country. But the absence of creative ... (read more)

Peter Rose reviews 'Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice' by Janet Malcolm

December 2007–January 2008, no. 297 23 December 2020
The subtitle of Janet Malcolm’s new book (published in Australia by Melbourne University Press) is Gertrude and Alice. Few names of literary couples can be so confidently trimmed. Scott and Zelda, Ted and Sylvia, George and Martha … all those happy couples. Gertrude and Alice has been used before, as the main title of Diana Souyhami’s joint study (1991), and will doubtless be used again. The ... (read more)

Peter Rose reviews 'Life Class: The education of a biographer' by Brenda Niall

April 2007, no. 290 01 April 2007
It is rare in Australia for a literary biographer, even one of distinction, to write at book length about her intellectual formation and biographical pursuits. A country so demonstrably forgetful of its best poetry and fiction is unlikely to foster a literature of this burgeoning genre, still emerging from its decorous constraints. Elsewhere, we have Richard Holmes’s seminal Footsteps: Adventure ... (read more)

'Editorial' by Peter Rose

April 2001, no. 229 01 April 2001
Readers will notice major changes in this second issue of ABR for 2001. The cover looks notably different, courtesy of Chong, Text Publishing’s inimitable designer. I was delighted when Chong offered to redesign our cover. Our changed masthead seems sensible, for the magazine is known widely as ABR, after all. Readers can expect more design changes in coming issues. ... (read more)