Updates

I want to thank Sydney Review of Books for commissioning a review of Foreign Soil. It is by far the most comprehensive and articulate review of the book I have come across – and the book had been very widely reviewed. I also wanted to respond some of Fiona Wright’s comments about my research for the story ‘The Stilt Fishermen of Kathaluwa’.

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.

Thanks to Kerryn Goldsworthy for her review of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride. My correspondence comes at a tangent to the substance of the review. I was brought up short in the course of reading the review by the statement ‘This may or may not be technically incest’, which follows a description of the rape of a niece by an uncle.

Australia has enjoyed a range of literary happenings this week, with festivals, awards, and even the unmasking of a pseudonymous reviewer making headlines across mainstream and independent media. Here is the week in review.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that in 2008–9, the arts contributed $86 billion to the Australian GDP – that is, 7% – $13 billion of which flowed directly from our field, literature and print media. It is worth noting that the mining sector only provides $121 billion to the GDP, and employs fewer workers (187 400 directly, 599 680 indirectly), yet receives far more government financial support at federal and state levels.

It is with some delight then that we launch our newly expanded newsletter. With over 2000 subscribers and more than 14000 unique visitors to our website every month, we thought it was time to widen the conversation about literary culture. Our new format will continue to alert you to the essays and reviews we are publishing, but we are also making space for a weekly round-up of literary news and events.

I have just read Kristin Otto’s review of Gardens of Fire by Robert Kenny. I much enjoyed it and am keen now to read Dr Kenny’s book, which sounds fascinating. I found myself pulled up, however, by something Ms Otto said near the beginning of the piece: ‘… multiple strands of narrative are expertly woven, with no more than the currently expected amount of editing shortfall’.