Stella
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“In this remarkable biography, Alexis Wright follows an Aboriginal tradition of storytelling that she describes as a ‘practice for crossing landscapes and boundaries, giving many voices a part in the story’. Tracker is a collective memoir of Tracker Tilmouth, charismatic Aboriginal leader, thinker, entrepreneur, visionary and provocateur.” – 2018 Stella Prize Judges
Mirandi Riwoe’s novella, The Fish Girl, packs a punch. A subversive postcolonial work of fiction, Riwoe inverts the white colonial gaze informing the portrayal of the ‘Malay trollop’ who causes serious divisions among shipmates in W. Somerset Maugham’s short story ‘The Four Dutchmen’.
Martin Sharp: His Life and Times is a thorough account of the life of a fascinating artist and a no-less-fascinating slice of cultural history. Joyce Morgan has written an exemplary cradle-to-grave biography of her intriguing subject, one that takes stock of his flaws and idiosyncrasies as well as his talents. Her crisp and economical prose seamlessly incorporates a wealth of historical research into a brisk and entertaining narrative.
The Choke is a compassionate work of fiction focusing on the plight of a disadvantaged child finding her way in the world despite poverty, absent parents and a dysfunctional family. Sofie Laguna writes evocatively of the Australian landscape, and paints an isolated, desperate world with much clarity and sensitivity.
An Uncertain Grace is a formally ingenious and often amusing novel that combines eroticism and science fiction with a playful spirit of intellectual inquisitiveness. Kneen’s writing, by turns playful and elegant, is never less than stimulating, in the literal and figurative senses of the word.
Paula Keogh’s portrait of a relationship formed in spaces of dark and light is touching and insightful. Set in Canberra in 1972–73, The Green Bell is centered around the time Paula shared with the poet Michael Dransfield, following their meeting in the psychiatric ward of Canberra Hospital.
The five stories that make up This Water draw on familiar tropes from fairy tales and classical mythology, but fashion them into distinct and evocative fictional worlds. Beverley Farmer’s protagonists confront the universal problems of love, desire, loyalty and loss; but the contexts in which they face these problems also compel us to consider the ways in which the constraints imposed upon them by virtue of their social positions as women have conspired to shape their experiences, conflicts and sufferings.
The Life to Come is a compelling work that rewards through its layered storytelling, showcasing an author at the peak of her powers. It is a novel that explores vast and varied terrain, both physical and psychological, examining many places – Sydney, Paris, Sri Lanka – and the people who move within them.
Claire G. Coleman’s Terra Nulllius is an arresting and original novel that addresses the legacy of Australia’s violent colonial history. It is a novel for our times, one whose tone is as impassioned as its message is necessary.
The result of years of painstaking research, Kate Cole-Adams’s Anaesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness is a work of memoir, philosophy, science, and cultural essay, a personal story that weaves anecdotes and statistics.
This is a literary portrait of one our most important living writers. In this book the reader is invited into Helen Garner’s world of writing, reading and ideas. With a style that is clear and elegant, Bernadette Brennan has crafted an immensely thought-provoking and enjoyable book.
Shokoofeh Azar’s The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is a unique and profoundly moving novel, translated from Farsi by Adrien Kijek. Set in Iran, the story is narrated by thirteen-year-old Bahar as she follows the fortunes of her family in the violent aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
