Catriona Menzies-Pike

Critic Swallows Book brings together twenty-two essays that together demonstrate the eclecticism of the Sydney Review of Books. It includes arguments about decolonising Australian literature and revisiting the classics, blockbuster fiction and book-length poems, modernism in the Antipodes and reading during the pandemic. Essays on Susan Sontag and Rita Felski sit alongside critical considerations of the work of Murray Bail and Joan London, and of new books by Evelyn Araluen and Samia Khatun.

The writer at work is often a mythologised figure, distant from the cares of the day. In Open Secrets, Australian writers reflect upon the material conditions that give rise to their writing practice.

Second City is a showcase of the diverse literary talents that make Sydney’s Western Suburbs such a fertile region for writers.

The Australian Face collects some of the best essays published in the Sydney Review of Books on Australian fiction, poetry and non-fiction. The essays in this anthology are contributions to the ongoing argument about the condition and purpose and evolving shape of Australian literature. They reflect the ways in which discussions about the state of the literary culture are constantly reaching beyond themselves to consider wider cultural and political issues.