Australian Literature
Maggie Ball
Latest Articles
A Review of Tim Winton's Dirt Music
Dirt Music is a big sprawling novel about the ancient Australian land, about loss, life, death, and redemption, about change and stagnation, but above all about love, and its power to change people.
Confessions of a Survivor: A Review of Poems by Lily Brett
Poems by Lily Brett includes two recently published collections, In Her Strapless Dresses, published in 1994, and Mud in My Tears, published in 1997. As with Brett’s fiction, both of the poetry books concentrate on the Holocaust, both Brett’s own experiences of fascination and obsession – the daughter of Holocaust survivors, ...
Interview with Karen Sedaitis, October 2001
The author of Soul Dark Soil talks about her book, the process of writing, the benefits of being published by a small press, on inner life, on the dangers of writing about subjects close to home, literary heroes, and her next book.
Humus-rich Food for the Soul: Karen Sedaitis' Soul Dark Soil
Sedaitis' work gets under the reader's skin; goes deeper than the details of her stories, and even when she is describing something ugly, like dismemberment, rot, abduction, physical, or emotional destruction, there is a kind of detached beauty in the writing, coming from something more eternal than the pain.
A Review of Imago Literary Journal
While individually the current issue of Imago contains specific pieces which work less well than others, as a whole, Imago provides an enjoyable reading experience, mixing a range of genres and providing a good snapshot of the broad and well varied literary life of modern Australia. The balance is good, and ...
Lifting off: A Review of Helen Garner's The Feel of Steel
Mastering a new sport, a musical instrument, having a grandchild, going through a divorce, or even taking a big trip, are all common scenarios in most people’s lives. These are ordinary moments, and that is why they are so wonderful. Garner takes the everyday trivial bits of our lives, and with ...
The Space between Memory and Hope: Robin Loftus' Backyard Cosmos
Robin Loftus' new collection of poetry Backyard Cosmos is a small collection, almost more of a pamphlet than a book, containing 50 pieces including a few haiku, but the work has that transformative quality which Ellmann refers to. Some of the poems are light, delicate, taking on subject matter like nature ...
Interview with Elizabeth Jolley
Elizabeth Jolley talks about her reader, changes in writing over the years, on innocence, themes, and labelling, and characters in her latest novel, An Innocent Gentleman.
Is this Nothing: Elizabeth Jolley's An Innocent Gentleman
As a comedy of manners, An Innocent Gentleman makes for a mildly humorous, and easy to read novel; a brief play which is a kind of light farce. As a commentary on the sterility of English mannered life, and as a serious work exploring issues of innocence and guilt, love and ...
Simone Lazaroo talks about the making of The Australian Fiance, her unique narrative style, the big themes, Australian literature, photography, poetry, and her next work.