Liam Davison's novel Florilegium explores the journey of Joseph Banks, the botanist who accompanied Captain Cook on his voyages around Australia. Poet Alan Wearne looks at our immediate past in his verse novel The Lovemakers , set in Australian suburbia of the past 30 years. And one of our most popular writers, Bryce Courtenay, covers three wars and four generations in his new novel, Four Fires . Arnold Zable, author of Jewels and Ashes , moves between past and present, history and fable, fact and fiction in his new book, Cafe Scheherazade . As A Clockface , a fabulous story of a ketch that sets sail in 1910 on a strange circular odyssey.
Historical novels are part of a continuing trend.
The River Ophelia . There are short-story collections from Dorothy Hewett and Tom Petsinis. Hewett also has a new poetry collection, as have Philip Salom and John Kinsella. Watch out, too, for new fiction from Rod Jones, Bernard Cohen, Michael Meehan, Venero Armanno, Matthew Condon, Sean Condon, Joanna Murray-Smith, Nick Earls, Margaret Barbalet, Lee Tulloch, Mandy Sayer, Tegan Bennett and Nikki Gemmell. Debut novelists are prominent this year, with at least 16 new names on publishers' lists.