From ghostly love stories to political satires and southern gothic thrillers, these are the best fiction books according to our academics.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Fiction
Displaying 81 - 100 of 266 articles
The question behind Tom Keneally’s latest novel is how a political idealist striving for his country’s freedom could end up supporting slavery.
At nearly 90 years of age, Cormac McCarthy is striking out in new artistic directions.
In the shadow of the climate crisis, a wave of speculative stories ask what it means to live in a world where everything is not an extractable resource — and where humans are not in control.
George Saunders has described short stories as ‘thrill-producing machines’, but his latest collection is hit and miss.
With its lovingly rendered characters and sharp aphoristic prose, Sweeney and the Bicycles is a study in radical self-absorption.
Ian McEwan has forged his own genre – crisply realist surfaces mixed with sudden excursions into the darkest corridors of the mind. In Lessons, the central character reveals a writerly consciousness.
Nights of Plague is set on a fictional island in the early 20th century. Is it an allegory of empire’s fall; a contemplation on corruption and East-West tension or a reflection on pandemic life?
In this tender, thought-provoking novel, an award-winning writer explores the ambivalence that often attends female friendship.
A panoramic tale and an in-depth character study, Iris immerses its readers in a world of impoverishment and struggle.
Elizabeth Strout’s novel Oh William! has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her follow up book takes us inside the head of a small, loving, anxious, slightly neurotic person during lockdown.
Shaun Prescott’s second novel is a gothic tale of skin-crawling, psychological dysfunction.
Norman Daly’s 1972 exhibition, ‘The Civilization of Llhuros,’ presented fiction as fact – and reminded viewers of just how easily they could be duped.
Four different authors – Sarah Moss, Roddy Doyle, Anne Tyler and Gary Shteyngart – tell four different stories of life in a time of COVID.
The Gothic horrorshow of Ottessa Moshfegh’s latest novel has sharply divided critical opinion.
This Book Week, don’t stress about the costume and don’t worry about what the other mums or dads are sewing or buying. Costumes are fun but what matters is to let your kid read what they enjoy.
Jay Carmichael’s novel explores how Australian same-sex attracted men lived during the repressive period after the end of the second world war. But does it impose present concerns on the past?
When Stephanie Trigg was a young reader, The Gentle Falcon, set in 1396, introduced her to the beauty and danger of the medieval world.
Ken Cameron’s film of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip is dark, yearning, weird – and incredibly sexy – writes Ronnie Scott.
Bodies of Light is brutally precise in its portrayal of the enduring consequences of a traumatic childhood.
Top contributors
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Executive Dean (interim) Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra
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Professor of English Literature, University of Southern Queensland
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Dean of Research (Creative), University of South Australia
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Professor of English, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, ACU, Australian Catholic University
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IT Service Desk Coordinator, Swansea University
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Professor, Chair of Australian Literature, The University of Western Australia
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Senior Lecturer, Writing, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology
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Associate Professor in Literary Studies, RMIT University
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Adjunct Lecturer, English and Creative Writing, UNSW Canberra, UNSW Sydney
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Associate Professor in Creative Writing, School of Culture & Communication, The University of Melbourne
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Lecturer, Creative Writing, University of Adelaide
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Associate Editor, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway and Assistant Research Professor of English, Penn State
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Senior Lecturer — Writing, Editing, Publishing, University of Southern Queensland
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Professor of History, University of Warwick
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Associate Professor, Griffith University
