Meanjin published the cream of Australia’s writers. With its sudden closure, a vital, 85-year thread of our cultural conversation will fall silent.
- Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney
A new book, Conspiracy Nation, explains how conspiratorial thinking and misinformation spread – both online and in the real world – in contemporary Australia.
The Soviet ‘illegals’ program trained and embedded spies who lived surreptitiously in the West – just like TV’s The Americans. Who were they, and did they really go away?
This fresh take by the Sydney Theatre Company combines existential dread with dark humour – and resonates for the current age.
Fitzgerald’s uncannily prescient masterpiece of wealth and ambition is an enduring classic. But though it’s sold over 250 million copies, it wasn’t an instant success.
The Glass Menagerie catapulted Tennessee Williams to fame. A new revival by Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre revitalises it for modern audiences.
Fletcher Knebel’s novel has much to say about the fragility of our democratic institutions and the dangers of unchecked authority.
El aclamado cineasta estadounidense David Lynch ha fallecido a los 78 años.
The acclaimed American filmmaker David Lynch has died at the age of 78.
Mike Davis traces natural disaster and climate change in Los Angeles over centuries, painting a vivid picture of a city on the perpetual brink of catastrophe.
The life and death of acclaimed writer Yukio Mishima is a cautionary reminder of the complex, sometimes dangerous relationship between creativity and fanaticism.
We’ve invited writers, from fields as diverse as wildlife ecology, politics and literature, to nominate their best books of 2024. And this year, the Books & Ideas team share their own picks, too.
Thomas Mann’s intellectual masterpiece is interested in time, love, mortality, culture – and the fragility of civilisation. There are worrying parallels between 1924, when it was published, and 2024.
In his new book, John Safran considers how broader cultural, economic and political forces and attitudes have contributed to a resurgence in antisemitism – through the lens of Kanye West.
The final novel from France’s most famous literary provocateur, set in 2027, features an antihero based on a real-life French politician – who reports to a president modelled on Macron.
The surrealists rejected traditional modes of understanding. They attempted to upend the established order of things by championing freedom and the unconscious mind.
The shadow of Ayn Rand (beloved by Donald Trump and Elon Musk) looms large over new novels by Lexi Freiman and Lionel Shriver, which satirise cancel culture. One of them is a useful critique of our age.
Creation Lake is currently longlisted for the Booker Prize. Our reviewer believes it’s one of the most important novels to have been published in recent memory.
The six winners of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2024 share an interest in identity and culture, form and innovation – and resilience and resistance.
Marion Crawford is best remembered – if she is remembered at all – as an employee of the British royal family. A new Australian play brings her to the stage.
We were dismayed to see no Australians on the New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century – so, with the help of 50 experts, we created our own, all-Australian list. You can have your say, too!
‘Flawed messenger’ Fred C. Trump III, Donald Trump’s nephew, illustrates his uncle’s cruel streak in his new memoir, with firsthand observations of a racist slur and dismissing people with disability.
Ensemble Theatre’s exceptional and engaging production of Uncle Vanya successfully captures the essence of Chekhov’s work.
Sci-fi master Ursula Le Guin always asked the question: what sort of world do you want to live in? In her masterpiece, The Dispossessed, she considers injustice and war through an alternative universe.
The culture wars have been around forever, but keep taking new forms, and US variants threaten to spill over to Australia – as seen in the recent (overturned) ban on same-sex parenting books in Sydney.
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