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Morgan Nunan

Morgan Nunan

Morgan Nunan is a writer based in Adelaide. His writing has been published by a number of Australian literary journals and arts institutions, including Australian Book Review, Cordite Poetry Review and the Art Gallery of South Australia. He is currently working on a collection of short fiction.

Morgan Nunan reviews ‘No Church in the Wild’ by Murray Middleton

April 2024, no. 463 25 March 2024
Murray Middleton’s début novel, No Church in the Wild, opens beneath Flemington’s public housing towers in inner-city Melbourne. Residents of the towers flood the street to witness the police arrest a group of children ‘pinned on the concrete, knees digging into their spines’. One of these observers is Ali, a grade six primary school student. Ali recognises a Somali friend of his, Walid, ... (read more)

Morgan Nunan reviews ‘Paradise Estate’ by Max Easton

January-February 2024, no. 461 19 December 2023
Max Easton’s second novel begins in early 2022 when an ensemble of thirty-somethings loosely connected through mutual friends and subcultural scenes decide to lease a four-bedroom share house. The house in Sydney has its flaws. Mould colonies grow on ceilings and walls in a ‘rich spectrum’, aided by a series of La Niña weather events. Situated just off a main road and surrounded by high-ris ... (read more)

Morgan Nunan reviews 'Thaw' by Dennis Glover

August 2023, no. 456 24 July 2023
Dennis Glover’s third novel centres on the much-mythologised British Antarctic Expedition of 1910–13 that saw Captain Robert Falcon Scott attempt to reach the geographic South Pole for the first time in history. Scott and four companions arrived at the Pole too late (five weeks after Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen) and would later succumb to the brutal conditions encountered on their return ... (read more)

Morgan Nunan reviews 'Shirley' by Ronnie Scott

April 2023, no. 452 28 March 2023
The unnamed narrator of Ronnie Scott’s second novel, Shirley, is a socially engaged thirty-something foodie from Melbourne’s inner north. She works as an internal copywriter for a health insurance company. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the vegan-friendly bars and eateries within a five-kilometre radius of her small apartment in trendy Collingwood. She also cooks: scrambled tofu and vega ... (read more)

Morgan Nunan reviews 'Bon and Lesley' by Shaun Prescott

November 2022, no. 448 29 September 2022
In keeping with his successful début fiction, Shaun Prescott’s Bon and Lesley is set in a declining regional Australian town filled with oddball characters and plagued by otherworldly phenomena. The Town (2017) was published in seven countries and garnered apt comparison to, among others, Franz Kafka and László Krasznahorkai, as well as Australian writers Gerald Murnane and Wayne Macauley. Li ... (read more)

Morgan Nunan reviews 'Basin: A novel' by Scott McCulloch

August 2022, no. 445 28 July 2022
On the surface, Scott McCulloch’s début novel, Basin, takes place in a brutal and degenerated landscape; the edge of a former empire in a state of violent flux. Rebels, separatists, terrorists, paramilitary groups, and the remnants of imperial forces clash over borders and interzones in the wake of the ‘Collapse’, an undefined geopolitical and ecological disaster. Print and broadcast media ... (read more)

Jolley Prize 2019 (Shortlisted): 'Rubble Boy' by Morgan Nunan

September 2019, no. 414 27 August 2019
1. Growing up, my brother and I lived with Dad in a Housing Commission flat among a row of identical flats. Back in those days, we played Greatest Hits of the 70s through a subwoofer on the back deck. During the guitar solo in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ we howled over the music and the neighbourhood dogs followed our lead, continuing their cries long after the song was finished. This was after Mum h ... (read more)