ABR's first US tour is in full swing, and Peter Rose has been to the Metropolitan Opera to interview Stuart Skelton as he prepares to become the first Australian to sing Tristan in the new production of Wagner's masterpiece 'Tristan und Isolde, which opens the 2016/17 Met season on September 26. Skelton talks about Marius Trelinski's new production, his own 'year of Tristan', and whether he will s ... (read more)
Hidden Author
Ben Mendelsohn
Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn has won a Primetime Emmy Award for best supporting actor for his role as Danny Rayburn in the Netflix series Bloodline. Mendelsohn beat out Peter Dinklage – to whom he lost in the previous year – and Kit Harrington from HBO's wildly popular fantasy series Game of Thrones, among others. Mendelsohn's breakout role was in the 1987 Australian film, T ... (read more)
Robert Dessaix is a writer, broadcaster, essayist, and memoirist. His best-known books are the autobiography A Mother's Disgrace (1994), the novels Night Letters (1996) and Corfu (2001), and the travel memoirs Twilight of Love (2004) and Arabesques (2008). He taught Russian Language and Literature at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales from 1972–84. From 1985 ... (read more)
In this episode of 'Poem of the Week' Bill Manhire reads 'Indexing Emily'. ABR Editor, Peter Rose, introduces Bill who then reads and discusses his poem.
Indexing Emily
The dead gaze back across their special days:cloud above clover, crisis above the crow ...Such new horizons, yet they still approach.They know how eclipse and ecstacy edge along together:whisper and wink of wind, but no ... (read more)
The 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize ceremony was held at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 27 August. The event was compèred by ABR Deputy Editor, Amy Baillieu, with opening remarks from poet and author Maxine Beneba Clarke.
Ian Dickson announced that Josephine Rowe was this year's overall winner of the Jolley Prize for her story 'Glisk'. Anthony Lawrence placed second for his st ... (read more)
David Unaipon (Wikimedia Commons)David Unaipon (1872–1967) was an Indigenous-Australian preacher, author, and inventor, whose contributions to science and literature helped overturn many of the prevailing negative stereotypes about Indigenous peoples in Australian society. In 1909 he developed a sheep-shearing device which was to be the basis for modern mechanical shears, and spent much of his l ... (read more)
Jolley Prize
ABR's 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize ceremony was held at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 27 August. The event was compèred by ABR Deputy Editor, Amy Baillieu, with opening remarks from poet and author Maxine Beneba Clarke, who delivered a stirring keynote speech at the festival's opening night.
We are delighted to announce that Josephine Rowe won this year's Jolley Priz ... (read more)
Announcing the 2016 Jolley Prize winner
Australian Book Review is delighted to announce that Josephine Rowe has won the 2016 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize for her story 'Glisk'. Ian Dickson announced Josephine as the overall winner at the 2016 Melbourne Writers Festival. Anthony Lawrence placed second for his story 'Ash' and Jonathan Tel came third for his story 'The Water Calligrapher's ... (read more)
In this episode of 'Poem of the Week' David McCooey reads 'Fleeting: Sylvia Plath at 80'. ABR Editor, Peter Rose, introduces David who then reads and discusses his poem.
Fleeting
Sylvia Plath at 80.
I have outstayed the old millennium,lost count of years, and jobs, and meals prepared.My children have careers; the students of my students teach. I have had some f ... (read more)
Our island home
Dear Editor,Melbourne geographer Peter Christoff may be right that Australia should shake off its island mentality, but he is wrong to suggest that Australia has become much less of an island economy in the half century since the publication of Donald Horne's The Lucky Country. In his review of The Lucky Country? Reinventing Australia by Ian Lowe (ABR, August 2016), Christoff misq ... (read more)