Firelight

‘Brilliant…This clever, genre-bending book constantly challenges the reader’s expectations…Prisoners, ghosts, strange green men, and mining tycoons populate the pages.’

Writing NSW

‘John Morrissey has produced a suite of short stories…that investigate colonialism and identity with a keen eye and uninhibited imagination…An elegant and unpretentious narrative style allows Morrissey to reach for outlandish or bizarre elements with the irreducible impact of a lucid dream. It’s a fable-like, and well-crafted collection.’

Age

‘Firelight is a mastery of craft. Each piece challenges narratives of colonialism with precision. Stories portray Indigenous characters from inside and outside perspectives—as observers and the observed—with a complexity that adds an incredible richness to the canon of Australian fiction. The writing is vivid and lush…It is a truly talented writer who can produce a collection that is both harrowing and exciting.’

Kill Your Darlings

‘An exemplary collection of Indigenous literary speculative fiction. [Firelight] engages with both a sense of wonderment and our innate capacity for compassion, wonderful and abstracted at turns, often simultaneously. Literary spec-fit is a genre to which Aboriginal people seem well suited, for a number of reasons; one of them is that Aboriginal literature is constantly and instinctively engaged with the fantastical. Morrissey’s stories, those of a new writer stretching his mind and experimenting with form, demonstrate that perfectly.’

Claire G. Coleman, Australian Book Review

‘Firelight is a highly original and compelling collection. In this debut, Morrissey cleverly uses tropes of familiar genres to explore different facets of contemporary Australian life, particularly the legacy and experience of colonialism.’

Conversation

‘It’s difficult to think of a time in Australia’s recent history where a book of short tales reflecting on ideas of colonialism and the Indigenous experience would hit harder…Brought together with provocative cover art by Aboriginal artist Gordon Hookey, this collection of superbly-written Australiana is unmissable, and couldn’t come at a more significant moment for Australian readers.’

Aurealis