We’ve created an Australian Classics book club, just for you – with special writerly guests each month.
Last year’s hugely popular Australian Literature 101 set the scene by introducing ten texts our experts deemed unmissable Australian reading.
This year, we invite you on a brand new, leisurely stroll through our national literature, as we guide you through rediscovered classics and much-loved favourites alike.
This time around, we’re looking at Jessica Anderson’s Tirra Lirra by the River.
Featuring
Kerryn Goldsworthy
Kerryn Goldsworthy is a freelance writer and critic, and a former academic who lectured in literature at the University of Melbourne for 17 years.
A former editor of Australian Book Review and a member of the editorial team that produced The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (2009), she has edited four other anthologies of Australian writing and has published essays, articles, reviews, short stories and literary criticism – including a collection of short stories, North of the Moonlight Sonata, and a critical study of the work of Helen Garner. Her most recent book is Adelaide (2011) in the NewSouth ‘Cities’ series.
Kerryn was the Australian Book Review Ian Potter Foundation Fellow in 2013. In the same year, she won the Pascall Prize for cultural criticism, earning the title Australian Critic of the Year. She was the inaugural Chair of the Stella Prize judging panel (2013–2015) and won the 2017 Horne Prize for her essay ‘The Limit of the World’. She lives and works in her home town of Adelaide.
James Ley
James Ley holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Western Sydney. He has been a professional literary critic for fifteen years.
His work has appeared in many publications, including the Age, the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Book Review and the Times Literary Supplement. He is editor of the Sydney Review of Books.