Welcome to our first issue for 2013! Highlights include Morag Fraser’s annual letter from the US – about the state of play in Washington D.C. Bernadette Brennan reviews Geordie Williamson’s controversial book The Burning Library. The first biography of J.M. Coetzee is reviewed by Gillian Dooley. We have reviews of new fiction by Brian Castro and Graeme Simsion. Brenda Niall writes at length about tensions between Henry Handel Richardson and Nettie Palmer.
February 2013, no. 348
'Signs and portents:The outlook for America in Obama’s second term' by Morag Fraser
November in America signals a time to gather in, take stock and breathe a little. The elections are done by the end of the first week. Thanksgiving beckons, the high holidays begin, media fever subsides – a little – and morphs into retrospective political analysis ...
Bernadette Brennan reviews 'The Burning Library: Great Novelists Lost and Found' by Geordie Williamson
As a reader, teacher, and scholar of Australian literature, I applaud any initiative directed towards increasing readers’ understanding of, and engagement with, Australian writing. Geordie Williamson’s The Burning Library sets out to achieve that goal. Thro ...
Joel Deane reviews 'Murdoch’s Pirates'
Talk about unfortunate timing. On 10 December 2012, the New Yorker ran a lengthy profile on Elisabeth Murdoch, the older sister of Lachlan and James. Elisabeth, forty-four, lives in Britain, where – while her siblings have ...
Gillian Dooley on 'J.M. Coetzee: A Life in Writing'
When I heard that someone was writing Coetzee’s biography, I thought he must be either brave or foolish. After all, Coetzee’s own approach to autobiography is slippery, to say the least. J.C. Kannemeyer was (he died suddenly on Christmas Day 2011) a South African ...
