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’.
Half-wild Lyra from Northern Lights was the first female character who felt real to Jane Gleeson-White. Then she met Elena Ferrante’s ‘ferocious, filthy, quicksilver’ Lila, a more complex version.
An historical account of double-entry bookkeeping and a novel exploring human-animal relationships have won two PhD students places on the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist.
