The Novel

Liminal Festival 2024

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The Novel

The old novel … had defined boundaries within which information was traded for the reader’s loyalty to a common and national agenda. The new novel places the boundaries themselves under question.
— Brian Castro, “Heterotopias” (1994)

Thirty years after Brian Castro considered the ‘new novel’, three of Australia’s most talented contemporary novelists discuss the future of the form. Is there such a thing as a ‘Great Australian Novel’, or have twentieth-century paradigms expired? What, exactly, does greatness have to do with fiction? How does the novel relate to the nation?
Dr Lynda Ng, lecturer in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, will host Jessica Au, Brian Castro and André Dao as they consider the novel, the nation, and the boundaries that shape them.

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Liminal Festival 2024

The Liminal Festival took place 2–4 August 2024, in partnership with The Wheeler Centre. This collection of work is in concert with, and responds to, the panels, conversations and provocations put forth by some of the nation’s most talented writers, artists and thinkers. Find out more about the Liminal Festival here.