Abstract
Introduction
In her introduction to Southerly 71(1), Elizabeth McMahon notes that “the quality of work we receive is humbling”, a testament to “the richness and diversity of Australian writing”. Despite the world’s dire financial state, Australian literature seems to thrive, albeit sometimes in varied new forms. However, despite Australian politicians’ proud boasts that the Australian economy is the “best in the world”, any regular reader of the annual bibliographies for Australia would note that the last few years have seen a contraction in the overall quantity of work produced. The endurance of quality, as attested by Elizabeth McMahon, suggests that this may not be wholly lamentable, but it is a concern for a literary culture which has always prided itself on being multi-voiced and diverse. Many publications are now appearing from small but dedicated web-based publishing houses, and the compilers of this bibliography are exerting maximum effort to keep track of works from these sources, for they sometimes fail to be noticed in the mainstream sources upon which we have traditionally depended for our listing.
Heading the year’s poetry output were a number of important collections of selected poems: Francis Webb: Collected Poems, edited by Toby Davidson; Noel Rowe’s A Cool and Shaded Heart: Collected Poems, edited by Michael Brennan, and Selected Poems of Dorothy Hewett, edited by Kate Lilley. Reviewer Susan Sheridan describes Selected Poems of Dorothy Hewett as “an extraordinary act of editorial artistry” which “also represents a long labour of love and mourning, for Dorothy Hewett was Kate Lilley’s mother” (Australian Book Review 329). The poems are arranged chronologically and represent themes such as sexual desire, memory and political vision. A Cool and Shaded Heart: Collected Poems emphasises but does not limit itself to Noel Rowe’s pastoral element; Rowe’s wide and varied interests are represented in a collection that includes mortality and the day-to-day aspects of dealing with cancer. According to David McCooey, “Rowe’s principal concerns are the post-Romantic ones of combining the quotidian and the sacred, the ordinary and the extraordinary” (Australian Book Review 329). The publication of a new volume of Francis Webb’s collected poems was hailed as “a major event” by reviewer Craig Powell, not least because it offered the opportunity to vanquish textual errors contained in previous collected editions. Unfortunately, Powell notes, one error has still crept through and is to be corrected in a coming e-book version of this Toby Davidson edition; nevertheless Powell concludes that “Davidson’s volume makes the whole corpus of Webb’s genius available, and clarifies it with scrupulously researched notes that shed light on Webb’s more puzzling private references” (Southerly 71[3]).
Bruce Dawe’s Slo-Mo Tsunami and Other Poems, a collection from “one of Australia’s most loved and respected poets” (Martin Duwell, Australian Book Review 327), comes fifty years after Dawe’s first collection, No Fixed Address, published in 1962. It contains many of his poems that celebrate Australian life, with references to the current asylum-seekers debate or the suburban sprawl, as well as new works which Duwell regards as “complex in their attitudes but rather different from Dawe’s usual modes”. Reviewing Peter Porter’s The Rest on the Flight: Selected Poems, Peter Craven remarks that there is “something preposterous about a Selected Poems that runs to more than four hundred pages” but concludes with the more generous description of the volume as “spacious and sparking”, noting that the book was compiled while Porter was dying and “comes now like a concentrated gift of gold in the wake of his death” (Australian Book Review 328).
Gig Ryan’s New and Selected Poems appealed to reviewer James Harms as an “exciting, sometimes difficult, work”, taking readers into a world where the beauty is not exactly classical, despite mythological references, but is rather “the hard beauty of truth, the hard truth of daily life wrestled into art” (Australian Book Review 327). Robyn Rowland’s Seasons of Doubt and Burning: New and Selected Poems deals with lost relationships, childbirth and death, and historical events, prompting reviewer Maria Takolander to comment that at the end of reading the collection, she “ultimately felt moved by poetry’s testimonial powers” (Australian Book Review 328). With the central motif of a wing running through all six sections of Diane Fahey’s The Wing Collection: New and Selected Poems, reviewer Rose Lucas observes that “Fahey’s work takes the reader into a sphere of in-betweenness, a potentially ecstatic space which offers passage between the known and the unknown, from the finitude of the image to the limitless sky” (Australian Book Review 327).
Noting that Elizabeth Campbell “wears the weighty influence of Gwen Harwood on her sleeve”, reviewer Bonny Cassidy observes that in her latest collection, Error, Campbell has “traded her earlier work’s sense of wonder or novelty, for a more learned acceptance and explanation of conclusions about love, pain, death and desire” and notes that “where Campbell once seemed more engaged with the inherently searching nature of poetic form, in Error she constructs her poems as prepared theses or conclusions”. Cassidy singles out the poem “Nietzsche Went Mad and the Clincher” for special praise, declaring that “any reader … will be stunned by this poem” (Australian Poetry Journal 1[1]). Like Campbell, Ali Alizadeh uses his poetry to provide responses to key places, issues and relationships in his life; Bonny Cassidy identifies these as the West, Iran, Islam, Australia, his son and himself and comments that in his third collection, Ashes in the Air, “it is hard to tell whether we should take his poems as meditations on truths, or as provisional solutions” (Australian Poetry Journal 1[1]). Reviewer Gig Ryan describes Ashes in the Air as “a type of odyssey from Iran to Australia, from youth to maturity, from birth to death” (Australian Book Review 330). In contrast with Campbell’s and Alizadeh’s tendency to seek neat solutions, reviewer Martin Duwell finds that the poems in Dennis Haskell’s Acts of Defiance: New and Selected Poems “aren’t comfortable essayistic meditations, but worried wrestlings with life itself, seen as process”. Duwell also comments that the process of creating a “Selected Writings” collection often “prunes” earlier works and feels that this may indeed have happened with this collection (Australian Book Review 330).
Tracy Ryan’s sixth volume of poetry, The Argument, reflects the poet’s preoccupation with mortality. Poet Dennis Haskell notes that “her ‘argument’ is argument in the older sense of the word, a discussion of the self with the larger whole of a post-God world in which a pattern of ‘giving and receiving’ – human, natural and impersonal – provides a richness to our lives if we have the courage to accept it” (<www.fremantlepress.com.au/books/1251>). Michael Heald’s third volume of poetry, The Moving World, turns away from the imaginative world to explore that of meditative contemplation. Departing from traditional poetic composition, Heald draws on the practice of Vipassana, which takes bodily sensations (vedana) as the primary object of meditation. The publisher’s website quotes an endorsement from poet Robert Gray: “This book seems to me a daring and triumphant project. I hope many people will be strongly drawn to it, as I was”.
Citing “hidden connections” as a special concern of poet joanne burns, Bonny Cassidy describes burns as an “overtly surrealist” writer with her thirteenth collection, amphora, displaying a particular attraction to “the hidden connections of polysemy” (Australian Poetry Journal 1[1]). Rose Lucas comments that “We may not always know where these poems are leading, or even what concoctions we could help to cook up – but the process is always rewarding” (Australian Book Review 334). Ken Bolton’s Sly Mongoose was described as “a loose, capacious book that challenges prescriptive views of ‘the poetic’ (even as it engages in its own brief polemic on contemporary poetry…)”; most reviewers regarded the collection as genuinely funny, although as Bonny Cassidy notes, “to call Bolton a comic poet … is to oversimplify things” (Australian Poetry Journal 1[1]). Jennifer Harrison’s Colombine: New and Selected Poems shows Harrison to be “a copious, varied, sophisticated and complex poet” (Martin Duwell, Australian Book Review 328). Libby Hart’s second book, This Floating World, grew out of a residency in Ireland and the poet refers to the collection as a “songline” through Ireland.
A notable first collection was Mark Tredinnick’s Fire Diary, which explores moods and aspirations of self as well as language. Tredinnick is also known as a writer of nature (The Blue Plateau [2009]), and an evocation of the natural world also runs through his work [see
One of the eagerly-awaited works of 2011 was Five Bells, the new novel by Gail Jones, which traces the connections of four characters in Sydney. Named after Kenneth Slessor’s famous 1939 Sydney Harbour poem of the same title, the novel deals with grief, tragedy and the need to come to terms with trauma, and like the Slessor poem it is filled with metaphors and imagery of water. In its format and in the interaction of the characters, Five Bells is reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Elliot Perlman’s novel The Street Sweeper is an example of “the novelist as witness to history” according to reviewer Don Anderson. Complete with a bibliography that underscores the truth in the fiction, it is both “a quest myth and a detective story” and “a means for Perlman to bring together two of his principal areas of concern: the fate of the Jews under Nazism; and the fate of African Americans in their profoundly racist society” (Australian Book Review 335). Elizabeth Stead’s fifth novel, The Sparrows of Edward Street, is set in the changing world after the Second World War, telling with a “refreshingly Australian point of view” the story of a family dealing with the post-war social changes. Reviewer Carol Middleton was impressed by the author’s sharp characterisation and light and humorous touch (Australian Book Review 331). Received as “a welcome tale in the Australian literary landscape”, Two Greeks by John Charalambous penetrates the clichéd territory of the southern European migrant culture, seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old member of a family in constant crises as it negotiates dreams in sharp contrast with the daily realities of life. Georgia Blain’s novel Too Close to Home marks the author’s return to literary fiction after delving into memoir (Births Deaths Marriages [2008]) and young adult fiction (Darkwater [2010]); written in the present tense, the novel’s concerns with a group of “small ‘l’ liberals” shows that “there is no insulation from the past, and the consequences of the things we did there” (Melinda Harvey, Australian Book Review 331).
Elizabeth Holdsworth’s Those Who Came After blurs “the divide between fiction and memoir, effortlessly slipping between a haunted European past and the difficult fictive present in Australia” as the author uses her family’s past (stretching back for centuries) to examine the effect of previous conflict on those generations who come after. Reviewer Sue Ebury regarded the novel as “elegantly and beautifully structured” with a “convincing and ultimately fast-moving text” (Australian Book Review 330). Holdsworth is a previous winner of the Calibre Prize for her essay “An die Nachgeborenen: For Those Who Come After” (published in Australian Book Review February 2007]). Tangea Tansley’s A Break in the Chain seems deliberately to confuse family history and fiction, creating the tantalising situation whereby “in attempting to write one … [the author] has instead become deliciously and successfully entangled in the expectations of the other” (Miriam Zolin, Australian Book Review 334).
In War & Peace and Sonya, Judith Armstrong (a scholar of French and Russian) presents a pseudo-memoir of Sonya, Tolstoy’s wife: “a domestic drama of epic proportions, built on the bedrock of Tolstoy’s work and given new life through the subtle characterisation of his wife” (Carol Middleton, Australian Book Review 327). Charlotte Wood’s Animal People is innovative in an entirely different way, the narrative spanning just one hot day. It delves deep into the persona of the protagonist, Stephen, a character from the author’s previous novel, The Children (2007), leading reviewer Miriam Zolin to describe Wood as a “consummate observer of the human condition” and a deft writer at the top of her powers (Australian Book Review 327). Unusual structuring is also central to Lyn Hughes’ novel, Flock, which employs the theme of wallpaper to interweave narratives that begin with the characters of one narrative being wallpaper designers and the character in the second narrative being their daughter. The novel is rich in historical detail with “fluid prose, powerful dialogue and some engaging characters” (Carol Middleton, Australian Book Review 330). Characterised by what reviewer Adam Rivett calls “vivid writing”, Gone by Jennifer Mills is filled with meticulous detail and patience as the narrative follows the major character on his journey home after release from prison. With this, her second novel, the reviewer feels that “Mills is clearly a talent with even stronger novels ahead of her” (Australian Book Review 330). The Indignities by Graeme Aitken is a sequel to his earlier Vanity Fierce (1998), offering another “provocative perspective on love and other catastrophes in Sydney’s gay male community”; it is, according to reviewer Jay Daniel Thompson, a welcome addition to the growing list of Australian queer fiction (Australian Book Review 331). Despite its title, Helen Hodgman’s “elegantly written, atmospheric novel” Blue Skies was described as “a Desperate Housewives story with an unsettling edge”, with reviewer Brenda Niall noting that the novel “places itself in the era of The Female Ennuch (1976) and adds a Gothic touch” (Australian Book Review 330). Max Barry’s fourth novel Machine Man reflects angry concern with corporations and corporate culture.
Other novels were less ambitious. In the words of reviewer Thuy On, Mardie McConnochie’s The Voyagers was seen as “an escapist adventure written by an author who satisfies and exploits the criteria of romance”, taking the reader through war and many exotic places as the characters search for each other and for fulfilment (Australian Book Review 331). Reviewer Amy Baillieu had much the same to say about Jennifer Rowe’s Love, Honour and O’Brien: “this is playful, escapist fiction to savour”. This is also the award-winning children’s writer’s first foray into adult fiction since 1998 (Australian Book Review 333). Jane Sullivan’s Little People is a “darkly romantic fairy tale” set in 1870s Australia “with fantastic elements of nineteenth century Gothic”; according to reviewer Carmel Bird, it builds to a “wild conclusion, all the elements coming together to amaze the reader” (Australian Book Review 330). Jesse Blackadder’s The Raven’s Heart is “a welcome and audacious piece of work”, blending explorations of history, invention and gender in a story about the author’s family’s roots amongst the elaborate politics surrounding Mary, Queen of Scots (Emma Ashmere, Australian Book Review 329). Bright and Distant Shores by Dominic Smith is set in both Chicago and the South Pacific islands, with “vivid characterisation and a breathless narrative pace creating a riveting tale” of plunder and the power of capitalism (Cheryl Jorgensen, Australian Book Review 330). A Waltz for Matilda, the latest novel from Jackie French, is built around the swagman of Banjo Paterson’s famous song, the story “rattling along at a good pace” (Gillian Dooley, Australian Book Review 328). The Blood Countess by Tara Moss is an amusing lightweight blend of horror and haute couture which allows the author to pay homage to conventions of vampire literature and cinema.
Several first novels were greeted with strong critical acclaim. Blood, the debut novel from acclaimed short story writer Tony Birch, is “nothing short of outstanding”, according to reviewer Chris Flynn: “Blood is a humanist masterpiece that has been worth the wait” (Australian Book Review 327). The Amateur Science of Love, the first novel from Craig Sherborne (a writer of memoir already known for Hoi Polloi [2005] and Muck [2007]), is narrated by a “literary monster” who “becomes compelling” because throughout the novel the “rancour and vitality of his voice are superbly maintained and uncomfortable to endure” (Felicity Plunkett, Australian Book Review 333). Described by one reviewer as “part fable, part puzzle”, Mette Jakobsen’s The Vanishing Act is an elegant story that touches themes as universal as belief and love, sharing a philosophical atmosphere in a similar vein to Gaarder’s Sophie’s World (Christine Piper, Australian Book Review 333).
The End of Longing by Ian Reid presents “a realistic portrait of a bleak world”, ranging across frontier towns from Vancouver to Dunedin, presented in flashbacks after the death of the main character, the wife of a shady Canadian-born Evangelist (Jeffery Poacher, Australian Book Review 331). The Chase, by Christopher Kremmer (who is already known for his non-fiction work), was hailed as a “delightful” work filled with the vitality of the Sydney racing scene between 1949 and 1954 (Don Anderson, Australian Book Review 334). Reviewer Anthony Lynch described S.J. Finn’s This Too Shall Pass as a “skilfully crafted first novel” whose “succinct characterisations are filled with insight and are often very funny” (Australian Book Review 329). The Boundary, the first novel by Nicole Watson (“one of Australia’s most promising academics”), attracted praise from reviewer Dean Biron (Australian Book Review 334). The Philanthropist, by John Tesarch, was impressive as “a domestic drama that grapples with notions of societal and personal responsibilities” (Thuy On, Australian Book Review 328).
Amongst new voices in genre fiction, Alan Carter’s Prime Cut offered “a gritty and engrossing look at crime and racism in a small Western Australian town”, signalling “the emergence of a promising new talent in the field of Australian crime fiction” (Jay Daniel Thompson, Australian Book Review 328). Harry Curry: Counsel of Choice is the first novel from Stuart Littlemore of ABC TV’s Media Watch and is informed by his legal career as well as his work in documentary film and television. While the Harry Curry of the title may not be a Horace Rumpole or a Rusty Sabich (from Turow’s Presumed Innocent), he is nonetheless a distinct character who looks set to return in future works. In the genre of speculative fiction, Black Glass by Meg Mundell is set in a dystopian Melbourne, conveying “a certain coming-of-age tenor … that keeps it alive, and, impressively for a debut science fiction novel, believable” (Shaun Prescott, Australian Book Review 329). Journalist Claire Corbett’s When We Have Wings is no standard fantasy, combining the genres of futuristic thriller, detective story and family melodrama.
Short story collections of note include Amanda Curtin’s Inherited, in which each story looks at a different aspect of love and the “slices of life” seemed to “ring true” to reviewer Francesca Sasnaistis (Australian Book Review 327). Tim Richards’ Thought Crimes was described by reviewer Carmel Bird as “a striking and powerful collection” of twenty-one stories filled with the “inversion of the commonplace”, told with sharp humour of a lost humanity (Australian Book Review 334). Janette Turner Hospital’s collection, Forecast: Turbulence, links its concerns with the motif of violent weather, the settings ranging across places where the author has lived. The first short story collection from novelist Patrick Holland, The Source of the Sound won praise for its evocative landscape writing, which “beautifully evokes the light and shade of Mary Smokes”, the setting for Holland’s second novel, The Mary Smokes Boys (2010) (Estelle Tang, Australian Book Review 330). Another debut collection, Jess Huon’s The Dark Wet, covers geographical ground from Melbourne to Varanasi and San Francisco in smooth and understated prose. Bearings, Leah Swann’s first excursion into fiction, delivers stories thematically linked by confrontation, often confrontation with the self. The stories’ characters are compelling, according to reviewer Tim Brewer, as are the themes explored; it is “a solid foray into short fiction” (Australian Book Review 333). Wayne McAuley’s Other Stories drew admiration from reviewer Laurie Steed for its “lyrical, rhythmic prose” that combines with the “uncanny ability to create an indelible image” from an author who “plays raconteur with great ease” (Australian Book Review 328). Rachael Treasure’s stories in The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare concern the untidiness of real life and the country-city divide.
Works brought back into print included Helen Hodgman’s second novel Jack and Jill, first published in 1976, and Angelo Loukakis’s first short story collection For the Patriarch, first published in 1981 and winner of the New South Wales Premier’s Award [see
Readers of Australian literature can always keep track of the best short works through annual “Best of” anthologies, though these have been fewer in number in the last couple of years. Two such anthologies from 2010 missed out on inclusion in last year’s bibliography: The Best Australian Short Stories 2010, edited by Cate Kennedy, and The Best Australian Poems 2010, edited by Robert Adamson, which was praised by reviewer Philip Mead as “a richly impressive selection from all corners of the Australian poetic field and across the generations” (Australian Book Review 328). New Australian Stories 2, edited by Aviva Tuffield, was welcomed by reviewer Chris Flynn as “a diverse, hugely enjoyable compendium” of some of Australia’s newer short story writers, including Cate Kennedy, Jane Sullivan, Jacinta Halloran, Ryan O’Neill and Debra Adelaide (Australian Book Review 328). New writers were also represented in I Can See My House from Here: UTS Writers’ Anthology 2010, the twenty-fourth annual Writer’s Anthology of the University of Technology, Sydney, edited by Alice Grundy; the collection includes prose poems, experimental works, and a screenplay as well as short stories. Other notable anthologies included The Kid on the Karaoke Stage and Other Stories, edited by Georgia Richter; One Hundred Australian Poems of Love and Loss, edited by Jamie Grant; and Indigo Book of Australian Prose Poems, edited by Michael Byrne. Alasdair McGregor’s Antarctica, a “remarkable, often magnificent collection” of writings about Antarctica (James Bradley, Australian Book Review 334), broadened its scope to include non-fiction and scientific writings, and The Penguin Book of the Ocean, edited by James Bradley, took this process to the point where reviewer Gregory Kratsmann described it as “a selection that is heavily slanted towards the non-fictional” (Australian Book Review 328) [see
As usual, the year’s general critical studies were wide-ranging, reflecting the continuing (and expanding) diversity of Australian literary studies. Glen Phillips used a poem about an event from Easter 1907 to cast light on the Valtellinese diaspora in the passage from Lombardy to Western Australia (1895-1960); Kit Kelen synthesized thoughts and impressions from Bundanon and Macao into the concept of “A Transnational Apprenticeship for Poets” and Bill Ashcroft commented on the “Australian Transnation”; a PEN panel discussed “Language and Politics in Indigenous Writing” and Clare Bradford used her expertise in children’s writing to examine “The Return of the Fairy: Australian Medievalist Fantasy for the Young”. Australian multi-cultural literature was the subject of a study published in China, Beyond the Binary, into Hybridity: Chinese-Australian Identities in Contemporary Australian Literature by Christina Liu Jianxi; the library of a New Zealand sheep station provided the basis for a study of Victorian reading habits in the colonies in Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World by Lydia Wevers; and The Great Australian Novel: A Panorama offered a view of Australian fiction from the perspective of the New Caledonia-based French academic Jean-Francois Vernay. The literary criticism of Noel Rowe was represented in Ethical Investigations: Essays on Australian Literature and Poetics, edited by Bernadette Brennan, and the views of the late Bruce Bennett were eloquently expressed in his essay on “The Civilising Value of the Humanities”. As usual, readers seeking an overview of the year’s creative output are directed to the literary magazine Westerly for Paul Hetherington’s “Sometimes Difficult, Always Diverse: Aspects of Australian Poetry 2010-11” and David Whish-Wilson’s “The Year’s Work in Fiction”; readers looking for an overview would also be interested in “The Silver Age of Australian Fiction” by Peter Pierce [see
The gradual resurgence of interest in Patrick White’s work was advanced by Remembering Patrick White: Contemporary Critical Essays, a volume in the “Cross/Cultures” series, edited by Elizabeth McMahon and Brigitta Olubas. Randolph Stow’s work also generated several new studies reflecting new lines of inquiry. Critic Kevin Hart provided an in-depth consideration of A.D. Hope’s poem “The Double Looking Glass” and several articles explored the work of poet Dennis Haskell (marking his retirement from academe). Other writers to attract critical attention were Murray Bail, Brenda Walker and Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan. The year also saw the discovery of “Two Lost Poems by Henry Lawson about the Boer War” [see
Mark McKenna’s An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark commanded much reviewing space for its study of a man who “still looms large as a figure in the nation’s literary world”. Declaring the book “an elegant and powerful piece of work”, reviewer Michael Sexton could not help noting wryly that the book “has one problem as a biography”: because “Clark spent most of his life in the isolated environment of private schools and university faculties”, we learn a great deal about Clark himself “but not of the Australia around which he wrote so much” (The Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum June 11-12). From a literary perspective the most interesting item from the year’s non-fiction was Susan Sheridan’s Nine Lives: Postwar Women Writers Making Their Mark, a “group biography” of nine post-war women writers who wrote in isolation and without the benefit of peer encouragement or the context of a literary establishment for women. The writers discussed are Jessica Anderson, Thea Astley, Rosemary Dobson, Dorothy Auchterlonie Green, Gwen Harwood, Dorothy Hewett, Elizabeth Jolley, Amy Witting (Joan Levick) and Judith Wright. Pamela Burton’s From Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story, also places its focus on women, in this case Mary Gaudron, Australia’s first female High Court judge, whose judicial legacies include the Mabo and Wik cases.
In Alan ‘The Red Fox’ Reid: Pressman Par Excellence, Ross Fitzgerald and Stephen Holt provide the biography of a journalist who covered more than half a century of Australian politics. James Curran’s Curtin’s Empire concentrates on one aspect of Curtin’s career – his “wartime assertion of Australian interests” at the time when Australia looked to America instead of Britain. According to reviewer Stuart Macintyre, the book is, “among other things, an exercise in cultural translation that seeks to explain how Britain and Australia were not competing but complementary loyalties” (Australian Book Review 330). A further insight into history is offered by Alan Frost’s Botany Bay: The Real Story, which summarises the evidence regarding whether Botany Bay was chosen as a settlement for commercial or military reasons [see
Following the demise of the poetry magazine Blue Dog, the year saw the appearance of an impressive and well-produced new publication for poets, Australian Poetry Journal, edited by Bronwyn Lea. The first issue showcases younger poets who surprise with their style and content [see
Bibliographies
General Bibliographies
The bibliography for 2011 does not normally include references for drama, book reviews or journals, and offers a very selective listing of non-fiction. Those seeking further information in these categories should consult the following sources:
Australian Book Review <www.australianbookreview.com.au>.
Australian Literature Gateway <www.auslit.edu.au>.
Bibliographies Published Serially
Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature <http://www.australianliterature.org/Antipodes_Home.htm>.
Australian Literary Studies <http://www.als.id.au>.
Poetry
Anderson, Warwick Hard Cases, Brief Lives 82pp Ginninderra (Canberra) Pb $22.00.
Bolton, Ken Sly Mongoose 191pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $20.00.
burns, joanne amphora136pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $24.95.
Cahill, Michael Vishvarupa Five Islands (Melbourne) Pb $22.95.
Campbell, Elizabeth Error 59pp John Leonard (Sydney) Pb $24.95.
Collins, Anne My Friends This Landscape 70pp Ginninderra (Canberra) $22.00.
Davies, Luke Interferon Psalms 220pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $27.95.
Dawe, Bruce Slo-Mo Tsunami and Other Poems 82pp Puncher & Wattman (Sydney) Pb $24.95.
Dicinoski, Michelle Electricity for Beginners 120pp Clouds of Magellan (Melbourne) Pb $21.95.
Disney, Dan And then when the, 60pp John Leonard (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.
Eldridge, Brenda Facing Cancer 72pp Ginninderra (Canberra) Pb $18.50.
Fahey, Diane The Wing Collection: New and Selected Poems 248pp Puncher & Wattman (Sydney) Pb $28.00.
Frater, Benjamin 6am in the Universe: Selected Poems (+DVD) 140pp Grand Parade Poets (Wollongong) Pb $27.95.
Gillam, Kevin and Lansdown, Andrew Two Poets 228pp Fremantle Press (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.95.
Goodfellow, Geoff Waltzing with Jack Dancer: A Slow Dance with Cancer 144pp Wakefield (Adelaide) Pb $29.95.
Guy, Molly Briefs 76pp Ginninderra (Canberra) Pb $18.50.
Hamann, Kathryn A Slight Fuzzing of Perspective 180pp Mono Unlimited (Brisbane) Pb $22.95.
Harrison, Jennifer Colombine: New and Selected Poems 247pp Black Pepper (Melbourne) Pb $28.95.
Hart, Libby This Floating World 77pp Five Islands (Melbourne) Pb $21.95.
Haskell, Dennis Acts of Defiance: New and Selected Poems 42pp Salt/Inbooks (Sydney) Pb $24.95.
Hawthorne, Susan Cow 180pp Spinifex (Melbourne) Pb $25.95.
Heald, Michael The Moving World 92pp Fremantle Press (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.95.
Hewett, Dorothy Selected Poems of Dorothy Hewett ed Kate Lilley 58pp UWA Publishing (Perth) Pb $29.95.
Hill, Barry Lines for Birds: Poems and Paintings 180pp UWA Publishing (Perth) Pb $35.95.
Jones, Eileen Reflections 70pp Ginninderra (Canberra) Pb $22.00.
Kennedy, Cate The Taste of River Water 96pp Scribe (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.
King-Holden, Jamie Chemistry 98pp Whitmore (Sydney) Pb $24.95.
Lansdown, Andrew [see Gillam item,
Lindstrom, Helen Cold Comfort 56pp Ginninderra (Canberra) $22.00.
Metcalf, Tim The Effective Butterfly 104pp Ginninderra (Canberra) Pb $35.00.
Page, Geoff A Sudden Sentence in the Air: Jazz Poems 48pp Extempore (Sydney) Pb $19.95.
Porter, Peter The Rest on the Flight: Selected Poems 440pp Allen and Unwin (Sydney) Hb $39.99.
Rowe, Noel A Cool and Shaded Heart: Collected Poems ed Michael Brennan 280pp Vagabond (Austin, TX).
Ryan, Gig New and Selected Poems 224pp Giramondo Press (Sydney) Pb $26.95.
Ryan, Tracy The Argument 88pp Fremantle Press (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.95.
Savige, Jaya Surface to Air 84pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $24.95.
Shaw, Laura Jane Water over Stone 76pp Interactive (Brisbane) Pb $25.95.
Steele, Peter The Gossip and the Wine 76pp John Leonard (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.
Tredinnick, Mark Fire Diary 105pp Pincher and Wattman (Sydney) Pb $24.00.
Vlanes Another Babylon 220pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $26.95.
Webb, Francis Francis Webb: Collected Poems ed Toby Davidson 480pp UWA Publishing (Perth) Pb $32.95.
Williams, Jane City of Possibilities 120pp Interactive (Brisbane) Pb $25.95.
Fiction
Adair, Robin The Ghost of Waterloo 338pp Michael Joseph (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.
Aitken, Graeme The Indignities 301pp Clouds of Magellan (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.
Armstrong, Judith War & Peace and Sonya 249pp Pier 9 (Sydney) Pb $29.99.
Barry, Max Machine Man 288pp Scribe (Sydney) Pb $27.99.
Birch, Tony Blood 288pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $29.95.
Blackadder, Jesse The Raven’s Heart 459pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Pb $32.99.
Blain, Georgia Too Close to Home 304pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Carroll, Steven Spirit of Progress 347pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Pb $29.99.
Carter, Alan, Prime Cut 320pp Fremantle Press (Fremantle, WA) Pb $32.95.
Charalambous, John Two Greeks 264pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $42.95.
Corbett, Claire When We Have Wings 472pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $32.00.
Currie, Christopher The Ottoman Motel 320pp Text Publishing (Melbourne) Pb $32.05.
Curtin, Amanda Inherited 227pp Univ of Western Australia Publishing (Perth) Pb $26.95.
Duffy, Michael The Simple Death 409pp Allen and Unwin (Sydney) Pb $29.99.
Earls, Nick The Fix 304pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Finn, S.J. This Too Shall Pass 242pp Sleepers Publishing (Melbourne) Pb $27.95.
French, Jackie A Waltz for Matilda 479pp HarperCollins (Sydney) Pb $19.99.
Gessa-Liveriadis, Anastasia The Lace Tablecloth 358pp Sid Harta (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.
Gross, Jan Jam Dreaming 382pp Sid Harta (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.
Hasluck, Nicholas Dismissal 368pp Fourth Estate (London) Pb $32.99.
Heiss, Anita Paris Dreaming 313pp Bantam (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Hodgman, Helen Blue Skies 176pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.95 [reprint].
Hodgman, Helen Jack and Jill 158pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.95 [reprint].
Holdsworth, Elizabeth Those Who Came After 343pp Picador (Sydney) Pb $29.95.
Holland, Patrick, The Source of the Sound 164pp Salt/Inbooks (Sydney) Pb $24.95 [short stories].
Hospital, Janette Turner Forecast: Turbulence 232pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Hb $29.99.
Hughes, Lyn Flock 288pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Pb $32.99.
Huon, Jess The Dark Wet 232pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $26.95.
Jakobsen, Mette The Vanishing Act 340pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $23.95.
Jones, Gail Five Bells 224pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $29.95
Joosten, Melanie Berlin Syndrome 248pp Scribe (Sydney) Pb $29.95.
Judt, Tony Ill Fares the Land 238pp Allen Lane (Sydney) Pb $29.95.
Judt, Tony The Memory Chalet 240pp William Heinemann (Sydney) Hb $45.00.
Kremmer, Christopher The Chase 400pp Picador (Sydney) Pb $32.99.
Littlemore, Stuart Harry Curry: Counsel of Choice 320pp HarperCollins (Sydney) Pb $29.99.
Loukakis, Angelo For the Patriarch 192pp Krinos (Sydney) Pb $24.95 [reprint].
Macauley, Wayne The Cook 304pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.
McConnochie, Mardi The Voyagers 268pp Viking (Sydney) Pb $29.95.
Mills, Jennifer Gone 320pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $34.95.
Moss, Tara The Blood Countess 398pp Pan MacMillan (Sydney) Pb $26.99.
Mundell, Meg Black Glass 288pp Scribe (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Perlman, Elliot The Street Sweeper 554pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Radburn, Michael B The Crossing 324pp Pantera (Sydney) Pb $29.99.
Reid, Ian The End of Longing 304pp Univ of Western Australia Publishing (Perth) Pb $32.95.
Richards, Tim Thought Crimes 240pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $27.95.
Rowe, Jennifer Love, Honour and O’Brien 360pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $22.99.
Sayer, Mandy Love in the Years of Lunacy 320pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $32.99.
Sherborne, Craig The Amateur Science of Love 288pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $32.95.
Smith, Dominic Bright and Distant Shores 488pp Allen and Unwin (Sydney) Pb $29.99.
Stead, Elizabeth The Sparrows of Edward Street 288pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $32.95.
Sullivan, Jane Little People 352pp Scribe (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Swann, Leah Bearings 198pp Affirm (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.
Tansley, Tangea A Break in the Chain 320pp Affirm (Melbourne) Pb $27.95.
Tesarch, John The Philanthropist 284pp Sleepers (Melbourne) Pb $27.95.
Treasure, Rachael The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare 236pp Michael Joseph (Sydney) Pb $29.95 [short stories].
Watson, Nicole The Boundary 276pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $24.95.
Wood, Charlotte Animal People 264pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $29.99.
Anthologies
Antarctica ed Alasdair McGregor 352pp Viking (Sydney) Hb $39.95.
Antipodes: Poetic Responses ed Margaret Bradstock 280pp Hardie Grant (Adelaide) Pb $25.95.
The Best Australian Poems 2010 ed Robert Adamson 250pp Black Inc. (Melbourne [2010]) Pb $24.95.
The Best Australian Stories 2011 ed Cate Kennedy 256pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.
I Can See My House from Here: UTS Writers’ Anthology 2010 ed Alice Grundy et al 289pp Brandl & Schlesinger (Sydney [2010]) Pb $26.95.
Indigo Book of Australian Prose Poems ed Michael Byrne 278pp Ginninderra (Adelaide) Pb $27.95.
The Kid on the Karaoke Stage and Other Stories ed Georgia Richter 272pp Fremantle Press (Fremantle) Pb $27.95.
Little Book of Weather ed Michelle Mortimer and Joanna Karmel 156pp National Library of Australia (Canberra).
New Australian Stories 2 ed Aviva Tuffield 346pp Scribe (Sydney) Pb $29.95.
One Hundred Australian Poems of Love and Loss ed Jamie Grant 215pp Hardie Grant Books (Melbourne) Hb $39.95.
The Penguin Book of the Ocean ed James Bradley 496pp Penguin (Ringwood, Vic) Pb $35.00.
Criticism
General Studies
“An Aspect of the Valtellinese Diaspora: Lombardy to Western Australia (1895-1960) – ‘The Entombed Miner, Easter 1907’” Glen Phillips Southerly 71(1) pp180-196.
“‘Are we the future of the past?’: Gothic Pasts, Gothic Futures, and Imaginary Lives” Peter Otto Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp86-101.
“A Transnational Apprenticeship for Poets: Some Notes from Bundanon and Macao” Kit Kelen Southerly 71(1) pp44-75.
“Australian Transnation” Bill Ashcroft Southerly 71(1) pp18-40.
“Being Caught Dead: Poetry against Colony Collapse Disorder” Justin Clemens Overland 202 pp95-100.
Beyond the Binary, into Hybridity: Chinese-Australian Identities in Contemporary Australian Literature Christina Liu Jianxi 215pp Tianjin Univ Press (Tianjin, China) [Brian Castro, Alex Miller, film-maker Clara Law].
“Biopolitical Correspondences: Settler Nationalism, Thanatopolitics, and the Perils of Hybridity” Michael R. Griffiths Australian Literary Studies 26(2) pp20-42.
“The Civilising Value of the Humanities” Bruce Bennett Westerly 56(1) pp9-13.
“Cosmopolitanism, Sovereignty and Medievalism” John Ganim Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp6-20.
“Counter-Poetics” Lyn McCredden Australian Literary Studies 26(2) pp91-108.
“‘Cutting off the Head of the King’: Sovereignty, Feudalism, Fantasy” Kim Wilkins Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp133-146.
“Debate: That Australian Poetry Should Attempt to Bring Poetry into the Mainstream” Robert Lukins and Ali Alizadeh Overland 205 pp64-70.
Ethical Investigations: Essays on Australian Literature and Poetics Noel Rowe (ed Bernadette Brennan) 240pp Vagabond Press (Austin, TX) Pb $33.00.
The Great Australian Novel: A Panorama Jean-Francois Vernay 288pp Brolga (Melbourne) Pb $24.99.
“Humanitarian Sex: Biopolitics, Ethics, and Aid Worker Memoir” Shameem Black Australian Literary Studies 26(2) pp43-56.
“Language and Politics in Indigenous Writing: A PEN Panel” Arnold Zable et al Overland 205 pp55-60.
“Marvellous Melbourne’s Middle Ages: The Burlesque Extravaganzas of W.M. Akhurst” Andrew Lynch Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp36-53.
“Meta-Medievalism and the Future of the Past in the ‘Australian Girl’ Novel” Louise D’Arcens Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp69-85.
“Notes towards a Radio Poetics” Mike Ladd Southerly 71(3) pp163-169 [on radio poetry].
“Parliamentary Medievalism: The Australian Magna Carta as Secular Relic” Stephanie Trigg Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp21-35.
“Poetry as Cinema: A Discursive Screening from 1913-2006” John Jenkins Southerly 71(3) pp135-148.
Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World Lydia Wevers 33ppp Victoria Univ Press (Wellington, NZ) Pb NZ$40.00.
“The Return of the Fairy: Australian Medievalist Fantasy for the Young” Clare Bradford Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp115-132.
“The Silver Age of Australian Fiction” Peter Pierce Meanjin 70(4) pp110-121.
“Sometimes Difficult, Always Diverse: Aspects of Australian Poetry 2010-11” Paul Hetherington Westerly 56(1) pp56-66.
“The Time of Biopolitics in the Settler Colony” Russell West-Pavlov Australian Literary Studies 26(2) pp1-19.
“‘When London Calls’ and Fleet Street Beckons: Daley’s Poem, Reg’s Diary – What Happens When It All Goes ‘Bung’?” Meg Tasker Southerly 71(1) pp107126.
“White Closets, Jangling Nerves and the Biopolitics of the Public Secret” Fiona Probyn-Rapsey Australian Literary Studies 26(2) pp57-75.
“The Year’s Work in Fiction” David Whish-Wilson Westerly 56(1) pp167-188.
“Writing the City: Sally Heath Talks to Matthew Condon, Sophie Cunningham, Paul Daley, Delia Falconer, Kerryn Goldsworthy and Peter Timms” Sally Heath Meanjin 70(3) pp179-189.
Studies Of Individual Writers
Bail, Murray “Behold Burton’s Tomb: Mortality and Escapism in Murray Bail’s Homesickness” Michael Ackland Southerly 71(3) pp23-39.
— “‘Matisse is jammed with confidence’: Painting and Creative Inspiration in the Early Writings of Murray Bail” Michael Ackland Westerly 56(1) pp198-215.
Brennan, Christopher “F.C.S. Schiller and Brennan’s The Burden of Tyre” Michael Buhagiar Southerly 71(3) pp116-129.
Carey, Peter “‘As these fresh lines fade’: Narratives of Containment and Escape in Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs” Janet C. Myers Journal of Commonwealth Literature 46(3) pp455-473.
Condon, Matthew [see “Writing the City…”,
Cunningham, Sophie [see “Writing the City…”,
Daley, Paul [see “Writing the City…”,
Dark, Eleanor “Biopolitics and Eleanor Dark’s Prelude to Christopher” Anne Maxwell Australian Literary Studies 26(2) pp76-90.
Egan, Greg “Art and Power in the Age of Empire: Greg Egan’s Society of Control” Phillip Drake Extrapolation 52(1) pp5-25.
Falconer, Delia [see “Writing the City…”,
Franklin, Miles “Miles Franklin and ‘The Survivors’” Janet Lee Australian Literary Studies 26(1) pp83-93.
— “Stella vs. Miles: Women writers and Literary Value in Australia” Julieanne Lamond Meanjin 70(3) pp32-39.
Goldsworthy, Kerryn [see “Writing the City…”,
Goldsworthy, Peter “Metaphysician: Trying to Read Peter Goldsworthy’s Prescription” Noel Henricksen Journal of Commonwealth Literature 46(3) pp257-274.
Haskell, Dennis “An Uncertain Smile: Humour in the Poetry of Dennis Haskell” Chris Wortham Westerly 56(1) pp25-31.
— “Paradigms of Identity / Jumbles of Words: Travels with Dennis Haskell” Megan McKinlay Westerly 56(1) pp43-48.
— “The Lyric Impulse in Dennis Haskell’s All the Time in the World” Page Richards Westerly 56(1) pp17-24.
— “Writing the Ordinary: Poets in Conversation” Isabela Banzon Westerly 56(1) pp35-42.
Hart, Kevin “The Edges and Voices of Silence in Kevin Hart’s Wicked Heat” Lachlan Brown Southerly 71(3) pp193-208.
Holden, Kate “Interview: Kate Holden” Janelle Moran :etchings(melb): writing/art/ideas 10 pp21-30.
Hope, A.D. ‘Susannah without the Cherub” Kevin Hart Southerly 71(3) pp76-97 [on “The Double Looking Glass”].
Hungerford, Tom “Tom Hungerford (1915-2011)” Geoffrey Bolton Westerly 56(2) pp11-13.
Keneally, Thomas “Cultivating Identity” Thomas Keneally Meanjin 70(3) pp20-31.
Lawson, Henry “Two Lost Poems by Henry Lawson about the Boer War” Charles Ferrall Australian Literary Studies 26(1) pp94-100.
Maiden, Jennifer “The Lives of Others: Tactics of Encounter and Wandering in Jennifer Maiden’s Poetry” Bonny Cassidy Australian Literary Studies 26(1) pp51-68.
Malouf, David “The Ayers Rock Experience: Reading to Recuperate the Lost in David Malouf’s ‘Mrs Porter and the Rock’” Bridget Grogan Australian Literary Studies 26(1) pp69-82.
Matthews, Gordon “Reconciling with Oneself: Gordon Matthews’ An Australian Son” Maggie Nolan Southerly 71(1) pp89-104.
Murphy, Agnes “A ‘Close-Cropped Scribess’: Agnes Murphy as Gossip Columnist, New Woman (Lesbian?) Novelist, Opera Entrepreneur and Militant Suffragette” Lucy Sussex Southerly 71(1) pp127-142.
Murray, Les “Revisiting the Wild Acres” Les Murray Meanjin 70(3) pp93-100.
Scott, John “Kristevan Intertextuality and John Scott’s Warra Warra: Examining the Mosaic, Uncovering the Political and Revealing a New Plurality” Suzie Cardwell Southerly 71(3) pp174-187.
Scott, Kim “The Time of Biopolitics in the Settler Colony” Russell West-Pavlov Australian Literary Studies 26(2) pp1-19.
Stead, Christina “Dreaming of the Middle Ages: The Place of the ‘Mittelalterlich’ and Socialist Awareness in Christina Stead’s Early Fiction” Michael Ackland Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp54-68.
Stow, Randolph “Grievous Music: Randolph Stow’s Middle Ages” Melanie Duckworth Australian Literary Studies 26(3-4) pp102-114.
— “Honour the Single Soul: Homage to Randolph Stow (1936-2010)” Martin Leer Australian Literary Studies 26(1) pp1-19.
— “‘I have so many truths to tell’: Randolph Stow’s Visitants and The Girl Green as Elderflower” Andrew Lynch Australian Literary Studies 26(1) pp20-32.
— “West Coast Correspondences: Randolph Stow Encounters Thom Gunn’s The Sense of Movement” Daniel Brown Australian Literary Studies 26(1) pp33-50.
Timms, Peter [see “Writing the City…”,
Walker, Brenda “Innovation Meets Tradition in Brenda Walker’s The Wing of Night” Clare Rhoden Westerly 56(1) pp118-134.
Webb, Francis “Toby Davidson, ed., Francis Webb Collected Poems” Craig Powell Southerly 71(3) pp221-226 [book review giving overview of Webb’s career].
White, Patrick Remembering Patrick White: Contemporary Critical Essays ed Elizabeth McMahon and Brigitta Olubas 235pp Rodopi (Amsterdam) Hb €47.
Letters and Autobiography
How to Make Gravy Paul Kelly 568pp Hamish Hamilton (Sydney [2010]) Hb $49.95. [memoir]
Not Dark Yet: A Personal History David Walker 336pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Notebooks Betty Churcher 264pp Miegunyah (Melbourne) Hb $44.99.
Non-fiction
An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark Mark McKenna 793pp Miegunyah (Melbourne) Hb $35.00.
Botany Bay: The Real Story Alan Frost 289pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $32.
Curtin’s Empire James Curran 162pp Cambridge Univ Press (Cambridge) Pb $34.95.
Disconnected Andrew Leigh 207pp Univ of New South Wales Press (Sydney) Pb $34.95.
From Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story Pamela Burton 511pp UWA Publishing (Perth) Pb $49.95.
Here on Earth: An Argument for Hope Tim Flannery 334pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $34.95.
Nine Lives: Postwar Women Writers Making Their Mark, Susan Sheridan 282pp Univ of Queensland Press (Brisbane) Pb $34.95.
Alan “The Red Fox” Reid: Pressman Par Excellence Ross Fitzgerald and Stephen Holt 378pp New South (Sydney) Hb $49.95.
Journals
Special Issues
Southerly 71(1) Modern Mobilities: Australian-Transnational Writing.
Southerly 71(2) A Handful of Sand: Words to the Frontline.
New Journals
Australian Poetry Journal 1(1) ed Bronwyn Lea 121pp Pb $25.00. <www.australianpoetry.org>.