book reviews

jessica zhan mei yu

Jessica Zhan Mei Yu’s witty, ‘effervescent’ debut novel follows a Sylvia-Plath-loving young Malaysian-Australian writer’s journey to ‘the heart of empire’ in the UK.

Two nuclear power plant stacks billow smoke into the sky at dusk

In speaking to the moment, poets are bringing the apocalypse to Australian literature.

A woman sits on stairs using a typewriter

‘Literary couples are a plague,’ wrote Elsa Morante, married to Alberto Moravia. They’re one of the couples in this lively exploration of what happens when two writers share loves and lives.

a woman moves under water breathing out bubbles

Deborah Levy’s new novel, set in our pandemic-era present, contains the heat and desire of a European summer and the upward struggle of a soul. Jane Gleeson-White says she ‘read it like a thriller’.