Week in Review

There are countless stories on the web about the innovative (and contentious) measures that librarians and other bibliophiles are taking to ensure libraries and book culture remain relevant. Fundamental to the modern library these days are built-in cafes, access to wifi, iPads, virtual librarians, lounging furniture, Xboxes and even a whole new code of manners that has sent the old-fashioned ‘shhh’ into decline.

Gordon Bennett, who passed away unexpectedly on June 3 this year, was a major Australian artist who, over a relatively brief period of time – about 27 years – produced a body of work that is one of the great achievements of our time. His work was widely exhibited and collected in Australia, and acclaimed internationally as well.

Nadine Gordimer died this week at the venerable age of 90. She was the first South African writer to win the Booker Prize – in 1974 for her novel The Conservationist – and the first South African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, which she was awarded in 1991. Much of Gordimer’s literary career coincided with the period of apartheid, and the fearlessness with which she addressed its injustices in her work led to the banning of several of her novels in her home country.

I used to think that public disputes about the state of book reviewing flared up, with a reliability that was almost reassuring, about every six months or so. The turnaround now seems to be more like six weeks. The latest spotfire was lit this week by John Dale, Professor of Writing at UTS, who published a flimsy article in the Conversation decrying Australia’s reviewing culture, its weakness apparently symbolised by the fact that there is no antipodean James Wood.

Eimear McBride has won another award for A Girl is a Half-formed Thing: the £10 000 (A$18 350) Desmond Elliott Prize. Reflecting on McBride’s achievement, author and judging chair, Chris Cleave, lauded the author and her novel with the kind of praise that would leave most writers breathless.

What a week it has been for Evie Wyld! After winning the Encore Award and the Jerwood Fiction Prize eight days ago, the British-Australian novelist, who for some years called Australia home, has now taken out this country’s most prestigious literary award. Wyld was presented with the 2014 Miles Franklin Award last night for her second novel All the Birds, Singing at a glamorous ceremony on the top floor of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Speaking on behalf of the 2014 Miles Franklin judging panel, Richard Neville, the State Library of NSW Mitchell Librarian, called the writing in Wyld’s winning entry ‘spare, yet pitch perfect’.

A big congratulations to Evie Wyld who’s had a winsome few days in England with her novel All the Birds, Singing. Within the space of 24 hours, Wyld picked up the £10 000 Encore Award and the £5 000 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize , an accolade she’ll share with seven other writers. The Jerwood honours the best British writing of the year while the Encore Award celebrates second novels. Wyld notably beat Man Booker prize-winner Elanor Catton for the Encore Award.

These days, digital publishing is a given talking point at writers’ festivals and literary conferences. After years of debate between publishers, writers, critics and readers over the question of whether print publishing could survive the digital age, it seems the industry has largely accepted – for now at least – that both forms have a place in the literary culture and, furthermore, that both have the potential to be profitable.

This week, on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, a highly personal essay by Yiwu – now a dissident writer living in Germany – was published on internet sites around the world, including PEN America. ‘The Tanks and the People’ details the devastating impact of political oppression in China. Included in the essay is a particularly harrowing English translation of Yiwu’s 1989 poem.

The power and the contribution of Maya Angelou to contemporary social and political life came full circle this week with the news that the writer had died in her North Carolina home on 28 May, aged 86. Since her death, the reach of Angelou’s work as a poet, autobiographer, performer, activist and scholar has been startlingly apparent. Thousands – perhaps millions – of readers, writers, artists, activists and commentators world-wide have gathered online to express not only sadness at her passing, but also gratitude for the way she tackled critical social justice issues such as race, class and gender discrimination, sexual violence, and the importance of preserving and respecting diversity within cultures.