'Aesthetic theorist Theodor Adorno believed that authentic works of art recreate an experience of the individual suffering due to socially imposed mechanisms, as a way of expressing a universal historical truth. Elizabeth Bryer's debut novel, From Here On, Monsters, published in July 2019, captures a timely human experience as it renders the suffering of Illegal Maritime Arrivals (IMA) at the hands of Australian bureaucracy, a major source of contention in the months preceding last year's federal election.' (Introduction)