Cirrus@Austlit

'Kristina Olsson’s novel about the construction of the Sydney Opera House is an appropriate book to launch Scribner Australia, a new imprint of Simon & Schuster. The book is gorgeously designed, with elegant endpapers, a gleaming dust jacket and stylish layout: a declaration that serious literary fiction is worth being serious about. And it’s appropriate because Olsson’s novel – whatever its flaws – is eloquent about bringing new complex things into the world and about how grand aesthetic enterprises can sometimes catalyse broader change, inspiring great dreams and heightened sophistications.'  (Introduction)