About

Recent Australian Writing

Is there a peculiarly Australian perspective in the writing that comes from 'the lucky country'? Or do authors across the Tasman wrestle, as all writers do, with the tug of war between a national literary tradition and the desire to be read and published internationally?

Emily Maguire’s articles and essays on sex, religion, culture and literature have been widely published, in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Griffith Review, the Observer and the Age. Her latest work, Your Skirt’s too Short, is a revised young adult edition of her earlier work, Princesses and Pornstars, Sex, Power, Identity. She is also the author of three novels, the latest entitled Smoke in the Room.

Kirsten Reed has just published her first novel, The Ice Age, which is set in America and has been described as ‘a brilliant new take on the road novel’. She was born in the US and spent her childhood there and in New Zealand and Germany before moving to Australia as an adult. She works as a freelance artist and writer.

Ouyang Yu moved to Australia in 1991 and has since published over 50 works of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary translation and criticism in both English and Chinese, including On the Smell of an Oily Rag: speaking English, thinking Chinese and living Australian. His latest novel, The English Class, has been described by Australian writer Alex Miller as an ‘utterly authentic story which deepens our understanding of both Chinese and Australian culture’.

CHAIR: Philip Matthews is a senior writer at The Press.