The Burning Library

A perfect introduction to Australian literature, The Burning Library explores the lives and work of some of our greatest novelists.

Alarmed by the increasingly marginal status of Australian literature in the academy, Williamson has set out to reintroduce us to those key writers whose works we may have forgotten or missed altogether. His focus is on fiction that gives pleasure, and he is ardent in defence of books that for whatever reason sit uneasily in the present moment.

The Burning Library is a dynamic act of reclamation inspired by Miles Franklin's claim that a nation that fails to acknowledge its literary treasures is 'neither preserved nor developed, but only defaced'.

Writers discussed in this collection:

M. Barnard Eldershaw

Xavier Herbert

Christina Stead

Dal Stivens

Patrick White

Jessica Anderson

Sumner Locke Elliott

Amy Witting

Olga Masters

David Ireland

Elizabeth Harrower

Thomas Keneally

Randolph Stow

Gerald Murnane

Geordie Williamson is chief literary critic of the Australian
newspaper, a position he has held since 2008, though his essays and
reviews have been appearing in newspapers and magazines here and in the
UK for over a decade. In 2011, he won the Pascall Prize for
criticism, Australia's only major national prize awarded for critical
writing.

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