In Irish novelist Eimear McBride’s much awaited new novel, Strange Hotel, a woman, not young or old, has checked into a hotel in Avignon, France. It is as nondescript as the others on her carefully curated list of cities around the world where she has stayed previously, or is to…
Diversity of Australian characters on the margins revealed in Miles Franklin Literary Award long list
Two debut novels, Room for a Stranger by Melanie Cheng and Act of Grace by Anna Krien, are included in the longlist for Australia’s prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award, announced this week. Six other contenders have previously been short-listed the Miles Franklin including Gerald Murnane, considered a candidate for the Nobel…
Armchair Traveller: Glacier walking, Skaftafell National Park, Iceland
Armchair Traveller: Floreana, the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Armchair Traveller: Pyin Oo Lwin (Maymyo), Myanmar
Don’t be put off by its brevity, Jenny Offill’s Weather packs a mighty literary punch
Lizzie Benson, the narrator of Jenny Offill’s latest novel Weather, is a failed university student, librarian, surveyor of life and lives, and enthusiastic amateur psychiatrist. She is busily absorbed in managing the everyday: her relationship with husband Ben, a laid-back IT specialist, caring for her worryingly bright son, religion-obsessed mother…