'After publishing my first novel Ghost Bird, I found even positive reviews would often show a lack of awareness of my beliefs, treating them as ‘myths and legends’. The structural racism of Australia bleeds through into everyday language and the expectations non-Indigenous reviewers place onto books by First Nations writers.' (Introduction)
'The arts industry in Australia is at a precipice—decimated by the pandemic and systematically starved of funding. Instead of advancing an economic and nationalist argument for the value of the arts, we need to confront Australia’s cultural estrangement and reorient the sector towards social justice.' (Introduction)
'What does it mean to travel as an Asian Australian on Aboriginal land? How reading travel memoir has helped me reckon with ethical questions of identity, colonialism and the complexities of Australian history.'
'‘That’s music to my ears!’ says Ceridwen Dovey, when I tell her that I think her new novel is like a love-child between Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Life After Truth is set over three intense days as the class of ‘03 meet for a reunion weekend on the Harvard campus. It’s a wonderful, compulsively readable novel following five friends—Jules, Mariam, Rowan, Eloise and Jomo—on the cusp of middle-age. During their weekend of soul-searching and reminiscing, the most infamous member of their class, Frederick Reese [senior advisor and son of the recently elected and loathed US president—sound familiar?], turns up dead. ‘I found it a really fun book to write,’ Dovey says. ‘It’s probably the most fun I’ve had writing ever.’' (Introduction)
