Omar Musa’s Miles Franklin win rewards epic, ambitious writing with a global scope
Omar Musa’s Fierceland has won the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award, recognising a formally adventurous novel that links family inheritance, colonial violence and environmental destruction across borders.Recent articles in Review
Not really like us - a new view of Trump's America
Kieran Kelly’s Not Really Like Us traces a lifelong fascination with America that gives way to a more cautious view of the US as powerful, vital to Australia – and fundamentally different.
The power of dreams – thanks to Freud
Neuroscience has challenged Freud's ideas about dreams. Nevertheless, Freud was the one who made us realise dreams can be meaningful.
Why Steinbeck's East of Eden still stands the test of time
As East of Eden becomes a Netflix series, Steinbeck’s sprawling Californian saga still holds power through its moral ambition, regional depth and slow contest between destiny and choice.
Confronting disruption and seeing it coming
A new book examines how to deal with the complex problems caused by natural and humanitarian disasters, technological failures and geopolitical tensions.
Tim Wilson wrote the case for Labor’s tax reforms
Tim Wilson’s 2020 book, The New Social Contract, could be the basis of fruitful debate on tax reform. Instead, we get performative outrage.
The five best films from Sydney Film Festival
This year’s Sydney Film Festival offered a strong field of films beyond Hollywood’s familiar moral economy, with strange melodramas, existential horror, childhood reverie, sporting tragedy and art-house pleasures among the standouts.
Australia’s bookshops are disappearing – government can help
Independent bookshops are closing across Australia as costs rise and discount giants dominate sales, but policy options such as tax relief, GST reform and book pricing regulation could help protect the cultural role they play.
Michael Jackson, funerals and the myth of the authentic self
How we remember people does not fit easily into a therapeutic framework of suffering, confession and healing.
Gold standard? Revisiting the Hawke government’s reform legacy
A new collection of essays on the Hawke government shows why its reform legacy rested not only on policy ambition, but on evidence, public service advice, Cabinet debate, consultation and disciplined political communication.
Hailing Australia's under-appreciated life-saving heroes
Desmond Manderson’s High Time – How Australia changed its mind about illegal drugs, is a social history of Australia's drug policy and a must-read for policymakers.
Do we need another bio of Errol Flynn?
Racism and sexism were central to Errol Flynn’s life and career, but despite this the new biography is compulsive reading, says Dennis Altman.
The many careers of Miles Franklin
Miles Franklin has been the subject of several new artistic works in the last five years. Her brilliant life still has plenty to tell us about our nation.
