Saturday, March 02, 2013

Welcome to The Sydney Review of Books

The Sydney Review of Books is an online journal devoted to long-form literary criticism. It is motivated by the belief that in-depth analysis and robust critical discussion are crucial to the development of Australia’s literary culture. We decided to embark on this project because of our concerns about the reduced space for serious literary criticism in the mainstream media, and the newspapers in particular, given their uncertain future. We intend the Sydney Review of Books to be a venue in which Australian writers and critics can engage with books at length, a venue in which to rediscover the intimate connection between the art of criticism and the art of the essay. The Review’s focus is Australian writing, but it will also consider the work of overseas authors.

The present site is a pilot that has been developed with the support of the Writing and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney. To begin with, the Sydney Review of Books has been conceived as a free online publication, in order to maximise its reach. After the initial posting of essays, new critical articles will be added at weekly intervals over the next two months. The funding of such an initiative is beyond the resources of the Centre alone. In offering you this selection of high quality criticism, by some of the best critics and writers in the country, we hope to enlist your support as readers, and that of funding agencies and sponsors, to ensure that the Review can continue as a dynamic contributor to our literary culture.

If you like what you read here, if you feel that we are offering essays that you are unlikely to find elsewhere, please tell your friends, family, colleagues, students and fellow-students, everyone with an interest, to visit this site. And don’t forget to leave your email address, so that we can contact you with news of each update.

Letters to the editor are welcome.


James Leyeditor@sydneyreviewofbooks.com

For further information about the SRB’s rationale see James Ley’s interview in Meanjin.

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