Author of the City Limit trilogy

NB: I wrote this article in August, 2016 (The influence of JG Ballard on my writing was strong at this time, apparently). It was never...

It is hard to imagine two personality types more different than the political man and the man of letters. One observes from the shadows....

On mimetism and the novel.

After months of on-and-off restrictions in Victoria, the state’s embattled Premier Daniel Andrews recently announced a six-week “Stage 4”...

Literary fiction is usually defined in one of three equally unhelpful ways. The first is the question begging reference to ‘works of...

In 2001, an activist named Lois Austin was corralled into a police cordon—or ‘kettled’—for seven hours in Oxford Circus in London during...

In Michel Houellebecq’s 2015 novel Soumission, Ben Abbes, leader of the French Muslim Brotherhood party, wins the 2022 French...

A consensus has emerged in the West that the appropriate—indeed only—response to the spread of the coronavirus is to suspend civil...

I roll over at 11 am. Throat was a little sore yesterday. Was worried I had the sickness that must not be named. Decided to sleep in and...

A few days after my recent piece on George Pell was published on Quillette, a reader contacted me through this site drawing my attention...

France has been a crucible for radical philosophy since the eighteenth century, and was the pre-eminent centre for the arts in the...

There are certain facts many people know about Ernest Hemingway without ever reading one of his books. He was an American writer who...

Perfect weather. Beaches. High wages. Safety. My home town should be the best city in the world. But Sydney is one of the last places I...

Never has a movie made me so sad. And not because a character dies or has their heart broken. The film made me sad because it utterly...

Clive James’s life story was one of exile. Born in Kograh, a working class suburb of Sydney, he moved to England in 1961 at the age of 22...

I brought that negative energy in my last post. But it's not all bad. Here are the seven best things about life in Paris. 1. Size The...

It sure is a pretty town. But Paris Syndrome—when tourists (usually Japanese) break down because the city falls so short of their...

With his black female companion, arched shoulders and prominent rib cage, several of Joaquin Phoenix’s scenes in the recently released...

William S. Burroughs lived a life of transgression and experimentation, and for this reason is loved and hated in equal measure. Like his...

Auguste Comte was one of the most famous and admired thinkers of the early nineteenth century, but fell into obscurity in the course of...