The Sydney Review of Books is Australia’s leading
space for longform literary criticism. Now celebrating five years online, the SRB
has published more than five hundred essays by almost two hundred writers. To
mark this occasion, The Australian Face collects some of the best
essays published in the SRB on
Australian fiction, poetry and non-fiction. The essays in this anthology are
contributions to the ongoing argument about the condition and purpose and
evolving shape of Australian literature. They reflect the ways in which
discussions about the state of the literary culture are constantly reaching
beyond themselves to consider wider cultural and political issues.
The Sydney Review of Books was established in
2013 out of frustration at the diminishing public space for Australian
criticism on literature. There’s even less space for literature in our
newspapers and broadcast media now. The Sydney Review of Books,
however, is thriving, as the essays in The Australian Face show.
Here, you’ll read essays on well-known figures such as Christos Tsiolkas,
Alexis Wright, Michelle de Kretser and Helen Garner, alongside considerations
of the work of writers who less frequently receive mainstream attention, such
as Lesbia Harford and Moya Costello.
Contributors: Ben Etherington, Jane Gleeson-White, Kerryn
Goldsworthy, Evelyn Juers, Julieanne Lamond, Anthony Uhlmann, Ali Alizadeh,
James Ley, Jeff Sparrow, Lisa Gorton, Emmett Stinson, Simon West, Michelle
Cahill, Ivor Indyk, Nicholas Jose, Zora Simic, Ellen van Neerven. Edited by
Catriona Menzies-Pike and James Ley.
