A Piece of Red Cloth wins 2026 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction

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A Piece of Red Cloth wins 2026 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction

18 September 2026

A Piece of Red Cloth, written by Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, and Djawa Burarrwanga, has been named winner of the fiction category in the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award for 2026.

Australian works of literature are recognised annually across six categories: Australian history, children’s, young adult, poetry, non-fiction, and fiction. A full list of recipients in all categories is here.

Unmasking Italian author Elena Ferrante, because we must

10 September 2026

There’s been yet more speculation as to the identity of the Italian author known as Elena Ferrante.

The writer of novels including the Neapolitan Quartet, and The Lying Lives of Adults, has always been upfront about their use of a pseudonym. And despite writing novels since 1992, her identity, their identity, has, so far, remained a mystery.

Nonetheless, the resolve to unmask the person, or persons, behind the works written under the name of Elena Ferrante, refuses to wane.

Of course people want to know who the author really is. For sometime there has been a consensus that Anita Raja, an Italian literary translator, writes the novels attributed to Ferrante.

In a more recent twist though, suspicion has moved towards Italian author and screenwriter Domenico Starnone, who is also Raja’s husband.

The plot thickens.

Starnone has denied the claim. For my part, I couldn’t care less. So far, I’ve enjoyed every of the novels attributed to Ferrante that I’ve read, and hope the writer continues publishing.

Although I’m sure someone will figure it out eventually, learning the identity of the actual writer (or writers) would be an anticlimax. A let down even.

Great going though, for keeping everyone guessing all this time.

The book is better than the film but does not need to be

8 September 2026

Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, in the United States, has lashed American film director Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation of The Odyssey, in a recent London Review of Books article.

Wilson, who translated the version of the Odyssey, a poem traditionally attributed to ancient Greek poet Homer, used by Nolan, was less than impressed by the screenplay:

I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of The Odyssey into iambic pentameter. In at least one interview, he cited my version of the first line of the poem: ‘Tell me about a complicated man.’ But I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.

Stern stuff. Another of Wilson’s comments, in regards to book (or literature) to film adaptations, also caught my eye:

Adaptations needn’t and shouldn’t follow the original with anything like the exactitude of a translation.

In other words, there’s no need for filmmakers, who adapt a book to film, to follow the source material to the letter. A point-of-view many directors would say makes sense. In the same way perhaps cover songs shouldn’t be carbon copies of the original, but rather re-interpretations.

But try telling that to the fans of a book, who are often appalled by the screen version. The book-is-better-than-the-film people. But how might Nolan have fared with Odyssey had he taken the story in a different direction? Even though it can be argued his is not a faithful adaptation.

Mine, by Adam Ouston, a novel length story written as one sentence

31 August 2026

That’s Mine, by Hobart based Australian author Adam Ouston (Instagram page), which features one incredibly, outrageously, long sentence of perhaps eighty-five thousand words. No full-stops, chapters, or even a few lines of space to break up the text it seems.

I can’t find an official word count for the novel, so made a guess. The hardback version of Mine has two-hundred-and-eighty-eight pages, and if each has perhaps three-hundred words each, then the total number of words would be well north of eighty-thousand.

Whatever the exact number, that’s one long sentence. The synopsis however perfectly suits the seemingly endless flow of words, written in stream-of-consciousness prose:

While searching for inspiration for what will be his final work, an unnamed poet and defender of Tasmania’s wild places finds himself trapped down an abandoned mine in the island’s mountain rainforests. In the darkness he is visited by memories and voices both from his own past as well as the tortured history of the pillaged landscape to which he has devoted his life and work.

That’s quite the predicament to be in. I imagine my thoughts would run into each other ceaselessly, relentlessly, were I in the same situation.

The Miles Franklin Literary Award 2026 longlist

25 May 2026

The longlist for the 2026 Miles Franklin award was published on Wednesday 20 May 2026, and includes the following ten titles:

Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts
Fierceland by Omar Musa
First Name Second Name by Steve MinOn
I Want Everything, Dominic Amerena
Little World by Josephine Rowe
My Heart at Evening by Konrad Muller
Salt Upon the Water by Lyn Dickens
Tenderfoot by Toni Jordan
You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson

Presented annually, the Miles Franklin award recognises Australian novels of the highest literary merit. The shortlist will be announced in June, next month, with the winner being named in August.

If you’re looking for reading ideas, literary award longlists make a good starting place, and are for me, a de-facto TBR list. I need more hours in the day to keep up with the resulting reading though.

The Serpent in the Grove, winner of the Commonwealth Prize, written with AI help?

23 May 2026

Congratulations to Trinidad and Tobago based writer Jamir Nazir for taking out the Commonwealth Short Story Prize this year, with his work, The Serpent in the Grove.

Since being named winner though, suggestions have emerged that the work is the product of an AI agent. When asked to assess the story, a number of other AI agents (how else would you check?) concluded The Serpent in the Grove was likely written with at least some AI assistance.

Prize organisers say they do not use tools to seek out the use of AI in submissions, considering the short story prize is for unpublished works. I see the logic in this argument, because anything parsed by an AI agent is probably only going to be regurgitated by the same agent later on, somewhere else.

The Commonwealth Prize operates on the principle of trust, say organisers. Here be another minefield of AI making that we need to tip toe our way through.

Capture, a new novel by Australian author Amanda Lohrey

7 May 2026

The tenth novel by the Tasmania based author, and previous winner of the Miles Franklin literary award, was published last week:

James Mather is a psychiatrist in his sixties. He is invited to take on a new group of patients. All he knows about them is that each one claims to have been abducted by aliens.

His wife, Deborah, is sceptical, but he gets going anyway. His patients tell mesmerising stories. There’s Anthony, for instance, who was camping one night by the Aral Sea; or Mary, the owner of a beauty salon, confronted by a ball of light moving towards her in her bedroom.

James’s research assistant Lucy Cheng sits in on each session. She’s an attractive young divorcee, who has made a study of anxiety, and who takes notes about each conversation.

With the sci-fi tinge, Capture seems worlds removed — no pun intended — from Lohrey’s 2021 title The Labyrinth, winner of the Miles Franklin that year. But who knows, maybe it isn’t.

Copyright is meaningless in the face of an AI ‘arms race’

7 May 2026

American author Scott Turow, in conjunction with five publishing houses, claims Meta used material protected by copyright to train its AI agent, Llama.

They make the suggestion the Facebook owner chose not to obtain permission to access the copied texts as they wanted to get ahead of the competition in what’s being called “AI arms race.”

Meta, however, sees their use of the copyrighted material as fair use, and claims courts have ruled this to be the case in the past. What will the court determine this time?

If there is indeed an AI “arms race” in progress, which is undoubtedly the case, I can’t see any developer of AI technologies doing anything that will compromise their industry standing. Even if that means doing the right thing by copyright holders.

Australian author David Malouf dies at age 92

29 April 2026

David Malouf, the Miles Franklin and Booker Prize winning author, died last week, Wednesday 22 April 2026, in the Australian state of Queensland.

If you’re unfamiliar with Malouf’s work, Sydney Morning Herald writer Nell Geraets has complied a list of seven “must-read” Malouf titles.

Spotify partners with Bookshop.org to sell paper books

21 April 2026

Spotify members in the United States and United Kingdom will soon be able to buy paper, or physical books, through the music streaming app, by way of a partnership with Bookshop.org, supporters of local and indie bookstores.

With just over seven-hundred-and-fifty million monthly active Spotify users, the partnership will surely be a shot in the arm for authors and book publishers.

It would of course be ideal if the joint venture (I hesitate to say deal, the word seems a little overused at present) more favoured indie and small publishing houses, but sales of any book, by any author, can only be a good thing.

Hopefully Spotify members worldwide will be able to buy paper books through the app eventually.

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