Week in Review

I would argue that the decision of the Nobel judges is not only courageous; it is also a welcome recognition of the fact that the concept of ‘literature’ is enriched by being understood in a broad and pluralistic way. And on this point, Dylan is a particularly astute choice. The judges’ one-line press release acknowledges that the significance of his work lies in the fact that it is larger than itself, that it acquires its full meaning in the context of the American songwriting tradition. He is, I think, a deserving winner of the Nobel Prize not simply because of the uncommon linguistic facility that his work displays, but because he occupies a unique position in relation to that tradition.

A new website, funding success, and a bevy of emerging critics.

A community of free-thinking, intelligent critics, engaged with Australian and international literatures in their many forms, our office shelves groaning with new books for them to consider, more readers than ever – all flourishing in what’s generally agreed to be the most difficult funding environment in 40 years. We’re looking forward to watching the pendulum swing in the opposite direction so that we may continue to give expression to this flourishing in the years to come.

‘A student’s complaint about what is disparagingly called “rote learning” touched off some preoccupations that seem to go quite some way back with me. For some reason the topic of memory has always been centrally important to any thinking I have done about culture, politics, and society.’

There is at least a forty-year history of reports into the Australian book industry, starting with that of the Australian Book Trade Working Party in 1975. Has everything gone to pot since then? Not quite. New research from Macquarie University shows that local publishers are adapting to a rapidly changing marketplace for books, writes, Craig Munro.

‘The poetry of Dmitris Tsaloumis, who died earlier this month, will be read time and again by young poets who want to feel the otherness of poetic language or experience the otherness within the poetic language. His translingualism is the home of contemporary sensitivity: “I arrived on time though I had no address,” he says one of his poems. He reached Australian poetry at the right moment, when a poetic regime change was necessary and desired. In his best poems, we have the impression that the unseen had found its proper musical translation and localised a home for his poetic existence. As long as young poets exist who worship the plasticity and the solidity of poetic expression, his work will be read—and that’s greatest praise anyone can give a poet.’

Why do critics line up to write about some books – and shy away from others? The current eddy of interest in a new, young experimental Australian writer, Jack Cox, presents an irresistible opportunity to comment on the reception of difficult literary fiction and the difficulty of separating a debut novel such as Dodge Rose from the buzz that precedes it.

The year has ended on a sour note for the literary sector. The consequences of major cuts to the Australia Council’s funding pool are now becoming apparent – and there are no new funding lifelines in sight. The SRB will resume publication in February 2016. In the meantime, happy summer holidays to all SRB readers!

There’s no books of the year tradition at the SRB. Why not? It might just be too soon to pass a verdict on the best books of 2015. SRB editor Catriona Menzies-Pike on the annual December best books frenzy

‘Telling the stories of the victims of murder restores the dignity that was robbed from them when they were killed. Where the task of naming the tens of thousands of dead and disappeared is perhaps too much, 43 names have become emblematic of the struggle for justice in Mexico.’ Ben Denham on two missing Australians and rituals of naming in Mexico.