Australian Book Review

Australian Book Review (ABR) stands out as one of the top arts and literary reviews in Australia. Established in 1961, ABR operates as an independent non-profit organization. It features a variety of content, including articles, reviews, essays, and fresh writing. The magazine's mission is to uphold high standards of criticism, offer a platform for exceptional new writing, and help maintain literary values while promoting a deep appreciation for Australia's rich literary tradition.

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Ned Lupson reviews ‘Flesh’ by David Szalay

1 month ago | australianbookreview.com.au | Ned Lupson |David Szalay

David Szalay’s characters drift, indifferent and alone, caught in currents of seemingly trivial events that carry them further from comfortable shores. Encounters begin and end without resolution, connections form and dissolve in passing, and only in retrospect, if ever, do scars appear. ‘Are you happy that you’re alive?’ one character asks another in Turbulence (2018), Szalay’s short story collection that circumnavigates the globe via consecutive aviation encounters.
The Count of Monte Cristo

2 months ago | australianbookreview.com.au | Philippa Hawker

Umberto Eco said of Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Count of Monte Cristo (1846) that ‘it is one of the most exciting novels ever written and on the other hand, it is one of the most badly written novels of all time and in any literature’. It was the unnecessary length and the repetitions that appalled him most. Yet when he tried to produce a more elegant, distilled translation, he gave up: he began to wonder if the repetitions and redundancies were a necessary part of its structure.
‘Shorebirds’, a new poem by Kate Fagan

Mar 24, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Kate Fagan

Kate Fagan is a writer, musician, and scholar whose third collection, First Light, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and the Age Book of the Year Award. She is Director of the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University and runs The Writing Zone, a mentoring program for emerging writers and arts workers.
Paul Kane reviews ‘At the Louvre: Poems by 100 contemporary world poets’ edited by Antoine Caro, Edwin Frank, and Donatien Grau

Mar 24, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Paul Kane |Arts Highlights

At the Louvre: Poems by 100 contemporary world poets New York Review Books, US$22 pb, 214 pp Poetry Contemporary poets head to the Louvre ‘Poetry is a speaking picture,’ said Simonides of Keos, and ‘painting a silent poetry’. From ancient Greece until now, these ‘sister arts’ have been frequently conjoined, though it is most often poetry that speaks to or for painting rather than the reverse. We have come to call this interaction ekphrasis (literally, a ‘speaking out’), usually defined as ‘a...
'Whither (or whether) Opera Australia?: A survey of leading arts critics and professionals'

Mar 6, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Robyn Archer |Michael Shmith |John Allison |Peter Tregear

These are challenging times for Australia’s national opera company, and not just because many critics and operamanes question whether Opera Australia is in fact remotely ‘national’ in terms of programming. Since 2020 the company has recorded consecutive operating losses. Recently, it lost its artistic director (Jo Davies) and its CEO (Fiona Allan). Reviews of some of its 2024 productions were lukewarm at best.
A tenor’s journey’ by Thomas Edmonds

Feb 25, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Graham Strahle |Arts Highlights

One of Australia’s most successful tenors and in his ninetieth year, Thomas Edmonds has put pen to paper in what might be his swansong. Ev’ry Valley: A tenor’s journey is a prodigiously detailed account of his life, and quite a marvel for what it contains. All his memories and ruminations are contained in its 313 pages, and the book is arranged in a most unusual way: by abode. A singer’s life is on the road, one might say, and this has surely been the case with Edmond.
Best Australian nature writing’ edited by Dave Witty

Feb 25, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Nicole Hasham |Arts Highlights

For a creature born to life as a small songbird, days and nights can be treacherous. At any moment, a goshawk, a cat, or a goanna may be lurking, waiting to turn the songbird into supper. So these pretty little prey objects – scrubwrens and lorikeets and honeyeaters and the like – have developed an astute group behaviour. One bird spots the predator and issues an alarm call.
Norman Holmes Pearson at the nexus of poetry, espionage, and American power’ by Greg Barnhisel

Feb 24, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | John Hawke |Arts Highlights

In his brief Foreword to H.D.’s posthumous collection, Hermetic Definition (1974), Yale Professor Norman Holmes Pearson (1909-75) provides an authoritatively crystalline summary of the poet’s life’s work.
'Truth: A theatrical documentary about Julian Assange' by Andrew Fuhrmann

Feb 19, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Andrew Fuhrmann |Arts Highlights

Silence is the central theme of Patricia Cornelius’s latest play, a theatrical documentary about the life and times of Julian Assange, focusing especially on his persecution following the publication of classified US military and diplomatic documents in 2010. This theme is announced in huge white letters on a bank of video screens above the stage in the play’s opening moments, where it lingers against the dark background like an accusation.
The Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2025 Shortlist

Jan 15, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Arts Highlights

This week on The ABR Podcast we feature the 2025 Peter Porter Prize shortlisted poems, as read by the five poets. Now in its twenty-first year, the Porter Prize is one of Australia’s most lucrative and respected poetry awards. It honours the life and work of the great Australian poet Peter Porter, a contributor to ABR for many years. All poets writing in English are eligible to enter. This year ABR received 1,171 entries from twenty-nine countries.