In this powerful epistolary novel, acclaimed Anishinaabe author Gerald Vizenor interweaves history, cultural stories, and irony to reveal a shadow play of truth and politics. Basile Hudon Beaulieu lives in a houseboat on the River Seine in Paris between 1932 and 1945. He observes the liberals, fascist, artists, and bohemians, and presents puppet shows with his brother. His thoughts and experiences are documented in the form of fifty letters to the heirs of the fur trade. Vizenor is a unique voice of Native American presence in the world of literature, and in his inimitable creative style he delivers a moving, challenging, and darkly humorous commentary on modernity.

Shortlisted for 2020 Center for Fiction's First Novel PrizeCorey Sobel challenges tenacious stereotypes in this compelling debut novel, shedding new light on the hypermasculine world of American football. The Redshirt introduces Miles Furling, a young man who is convinced he was placed on earth to play football. Deep in the closet, he sees the sport as a means of gaining a permanent foothold in a culture that would otherwise reject him. Still, Miles's body lags behind his ambitions, and recruiters tell him he is not big enough to compete at the top level. His dreams come true when a letter arrives from King College.The elite southern school boasts one of the best educations in America and one of the worst Division One football programs. King football is filled with obscure, ignored players like Miles -- which is why he and the sports world in general are shocked when the country's top recruit, Reshawn McCoy, also chooses to attend the college. As brilliant a student as he is a player, the intensely private Reshawn refuses to explain why he chose King over other programs.Miles is as baffled as everyone else, and less than thrilled when he winds up rooming with the taciturn Reshawn. Initially at odds with each other, the pair become confidants as the win-at-all-costs program makes brutal demands on their time and bodies. When their true selves and the identities that have been imposed on them by the game collide, both young men are forced to make life-changing choices.

Meticulously using contemporary newspaper reports, court records, published memoirs, private letters and diaries, Michael Wilding tells the story of three troubled geniuses of Australian writing and their world of poetry and poverty, alcohol and opiates, horse-racing and theatre, journalism and publishing. Gordon shot himself, unable to pay the printer of his poems; Kendall ended up in a mental hospital after forging a cheque, and Clarke died bankrupt for a second time.

Pat and Ruth Beckett have retired from Sydney to the sublime landscape of the far south coast. To their garden, to their books, to their island in the lake. They want no part of the madness of Harbourside Grammar, monstrous celebrity billionaire Buckets Barrington, or the sinister Magnareach Corporation. But the madness wants a part of them. Can great books, small black ducks, perfectly formed compost and proper placement of the apostrophe be enough to defend their paradise?

In this collection acclaimed Australian author, playwright, screenwriter Louis Nowra shows his breathtaking range that takes us from Venice to Lord Howe Island, from the chaos of contemporary Moscow to Sydney high society, from Edwardian London to a mysterious island full of beauty and terror in Far North Queensland. In these highly imaginative stories and novellas, odd balls, society matrons, prime ministers, obsessives, drunks, the vengeful, the innocents and other vivid characters feature in stories that are disturbing, moving and comic. This extraordinary collection is a testament to Nowra’s unique and unsettling vision.

In poetic vignettes set against the fascinating exotics of Australia and France, Chandani Lokugé weaves a haunting and meditative story on the spectral gains and losses of travel, the nature of its transience. Through it, she dignifies with grace and tenderness, our unassuageable yearning, when we have lost everything and even ourselves, to anchor to something, someone, somewhere, and the unexpected moment of our arrival.

Keys to the past; Gallipoli reimagined. Athens, November 1915. A city buffeted by the chaos of the war, a city swarming with spies and opportunists. When a British counter espionage unit is contacted by a man from Smyrna, it seems that a bold new plan is afoot to cut through the Turkish defences at nearby Gallipoli …. until the finding of the man’s body in a room set aside for the meeting. An Australian-born agent Robert Kaub is drawn into the investigation, and is soon forced to confront memories of love and betrayal in pre-war Athens. An ominous note, an old coin from Ephesus, cryptic cables – Robert’s discoveries bring him eventually to a place where things could go either way for the Allied cause. Aegean battlefields. A besieged city. Deaths foretold. These are mirrored in a mystery shaped by the ill-fated attempt to capture Constantinople, a story tinted by the truths and untruths of war, a tragic tale akin to myth.

It’s October 2048 and an Islamist political Party has swept to power in Britain’s general elections. Overnight the country is transformed by the introduction of the blasphemy laws. An Australian history teacher who lost his wife and daughter in a terror attack arrives in London to make contact with the leader of the Resistance. When he becomes involved with a homeless young woman, he discovers the possibility of a new life for both of them far from the dangers of the new London.

A compelling drama… a verdict just in time. A newcomer to Broome in Western Australia, Colin Everett is drawn into a fierce dispute about native title known as ‘the Bradshaw case’. The disappearance of a key witness points to threats of blackmail, or even worse. To win the case for the Aboriginal claimants, Colin and his fellow lawyers have to find the witness, get the better of their opponents, and probe the origin of ancient rock art in the Kimberley region. The case ends in a swirl of controversy and a crucial verdict. It offers a poignant glimpse of how the future can be shaped by half-truths and human failings, by contested versions of the past. Joseph Bradshaw, an explorer and pastoralist, gave his name to rock art of great beauty, uniqueness and antiquity. Little is known of the people who created it many thousands of years ago.

TV producer Jimmy Fyffe starts taking anabolic steroids to restore the 'manliness' he has lost in a disastrous career and unhappy marriage. His plan works - a little too well. Soon he is a cocaine dealer, carving out a market in Dublin’s more affluent suburbs. This draws him into conflict with two established drugs gangs. He is kidnapped, beaten and terrorized, and is linked to the killing of a drugs-lord and two Gardaí. Testosterone, Dublin 8 describes the effect of the 'male hormone' on an individual, and the wider society, told against the backdrop of a gentrifying Dublin. It is a moral tale wrapped in a classic thriller that gets to the heart - and veins - of modern Ireland. Is Jimmy next to die, or will the same newfound machismo that landed him in trouble also help him escape it? Things get worse before they get better; ultimately, the answer is found in an ayahuasca ceremony in the Wicklow mountains.

Castro's communist regime gained control of Cuba in 1959, sparking a surge of immigration to the United States, particularly Miami, as refugees sought a better life. But for many, Cuba will always be home. The island's stories pass from refugee to refugee, immigrant to grandchild, mingling hope for the future with grief for what's lost. Yet these stories also pass down a deep, unconscious desire for the unattainable, which often results in fractured relationships and a loss of purpose for both young and old. Grieving for Guava revels in the unbroken ties between past and future, Havana and Miami, and recounts the unintended generational costs of immigration. Ten stories explore the lives of Cuban refugees in Miami as they grapple with a longing for the past and a fervent need to move forward. Spanning six decades of the Cuban exile, these stories lay bare a collective struggle to overcome the destabilizing effects of migration and to reassemble splintered identities: A journalist returns to the island for a childhood toy. An investment banker leaves Miami to open a bookstore near the Malecon. A girl with cerebral palsy attempts to swim across the ocean to reach her lost home. Cecilia Fernandez artfully weaves together the complicated lives of her characters to produce an overarching sense of yearning for the past, transforming grief into an even more powerful force: communion.Grieving for Guava captures the heartache and hope that are common in the immigrant experience, adding a dynamic, human voice to the politically charged dialogue surrounding immigration.

Miracelle Loving's world comes crashing down when her mother, Ruby, is murdered during a fortune-telling session gone wrong. Not that she had much of a stable world to lose in the first place; the free-spirited mother-daughter duo had never remained in one place for very long. Without the guidance of her mother, Miracelle grows up following the only path she knows, traveling from town to town, sometimes fortune-telling, picking up odd jobs to fill the time and escape the ever-present lostness she can't seem to run far enough away from. Uncertain of what she wants and, indeed, whether she wants anything or anyone at all, the now thirty-something-year-old finds herself working as a card reader in a Knoxville dive bar, selling fictions as futures, when she is confronted with her mother's ghost voice promising to reveal the truth about her shadowy past. Desperate for answers, Miracelle sets out on a magical road trip unlike any other, in search of her own story and a father she's never known.Following snowy highways and backroads, Miracelle stumbles across a museum of oddities and a hole-in-the-road town called Radiant, ultimately wandering into the town of Smyte, where she begins waitressing at the Black Cat Diner. Here, she befriends card-playing has-been Russell Wallen, whom she joins for a series of nighttime adventures, long drives, and after-dark visits to a Holy Roller church. This mythical journey uncovers family secrets and forgotten truths, transforming a familiar story of love and betrayal to reveal the binding power of magic and memory.

A miscreant, misanthrope, and misfit, two-nosed Luther Jukes lands in jail for murdering a man who insulted his froglike facial features. As Luther schemes in his cell, "hoosegow scullery maid" Juanita Sparks frets over an unwanted pregnancy. But there may be a bit of magic that can sort out this mess. In the style of underground comix, Ed McClanahan and J. T. Dockery present Juanita and the Frog Prince, an outrageous tale adapted from McClanahan's novella of the same name, originally published in A Congress of Wonders. Set in 1940s Kentucky, Juanita features a cast of characters trying to get ahead at all costs, including the Right Reverend Philander Cosmo Rexroat, redheaded rich boy Warren Harding Skidmore, and "Bad-Cess" Sallie Jukes, the town apothecary rumored to have "access to sinister forces." Rendered in bold strokes of ink that swirl from panel to panel, Luther's and Juanita's stories become further entangled until, in desperation, they attempt to harness the power of a lucky toadstone to create their own fairytale ending -- or do they?Juanita and the Frog Prince is a southern Gothic psychedelic trip of a comic that will enrapture readers until the stroke of midnight -- and the final KLANG of the clocktower bell.

Martin Kern has a special sensitivity to fonts, a skill that he uses to solve typographical crimes. When a local printer is found dead in his workshop, his body in the shape of an X, Martin and his co-investigator, journalist Lucy Tan, are drawn into a mystery that is stranger than anything they have encountered before. Someone is leaving typographical clues at the scenes of a series of murders. All the trails lead back to Pieter van Floogstraten, a Dutch design genius who disappeared without trace in the 1970s, and who has since been engaged in a mystical scheme to create the world’s most perfect font, which is concealed in locations around the globe. But is he really the killer, and how are the crimes connected to his secret font? In solving the mystery, Martin and Lucy may have to expose Martin’s hero as a psychopath. The main plot of the novel unfolds in Melbourne, while interleaved chapters set variously in a Tibetan monastery, on the plains of Peru, in London, Naples and Amsterdam, gradually reveal the story of Floogstraten in flashback. Other characters include a noir-style private font investigator, a typographical monk from the Renaissance, a Dutch prog rock group named I Am A Dolphin, and a collective of Italian typo-terrorists. This novel takes the reader into the arcane world of typographers and their typefaces, of symbols, swashes and glyphs, where the difference between a serif and sans serif could mean life and death.

War and its aftermath change the lives of everyone they touch. In 1946 the Japanese War Crime Trials begin in Tokyo, where General MacArthur is initiating his grand strategy for converting Japan to a democracy and a bastion against Asian communism. Bill Liston, an Australian law lecturer conscripted to assist in the prosecutions, is embroiled in the dubious legal manoeuverings and questionable summary justice. His fiancée Irene White remains in Brisbane. Both are brought into contact with survivors of the war years – an exotic Dutch commando, a martinet Land Army Officer, teenage prisoners of war rescued from the sinking of HMAS Perth, military and legal careerists, and shattered Japanese civilians. Amongst all of this, Bill and Irene struggle to resolve their relationship and their future.

On Bondi Beach tells the story of a day in Bondi by allowing residents and visitors to tell their stories. The beach changes as the day passes. Different people arrive and leave, and as their lives and stories intersect, those being talked about become those who are talking. This is a book about living in a particular place, but it is also about contemporary Australia, flourishing in transience and diversity.