[dropcap letter=”S”]tella is delighted to announce the 2019 Stella Prize longlist of extraordinary books by Australian women.

The twelve books cover sexual assault, arson and its consequences, parental neglect, issues of mental health, dysfunctional and complicated family life, chronic illness, and inherited pain. Each is concerned with the most important questions of how to live now, and writers demonstrate first-rate critical thinking capabilities, tremendous imagination, and a readiness to take risks with form.

Enjoy discovering the 2019 Stella Prize longlist. Be surprised, educated, and entertained by these exceptional books, as new information is revealed in a different, humorous, and heartbreaking light

Man Out of Time is an audacious, splendidly accomplished novel, lit by shimmering prose. This impeccably crafted book charts a man’s spiral into mental illness and its devastating consequences for his family. Moving fluidly between timeframes and points of view, Man Out of Time uncovers the disturbing relations between Stella and her father. The result is a profound, layered meditation on memory and time, on the warping of love as well as its persistence.

Bishop’s grasp of the formal devices at play in the literary novel is excellent. Her evocation of the natural world, which she merges seamlessly with her characters’ perceptions, is flawless. Bishop’s rendering of interiority is never less than impressive – Stella and her father are drawn with particular flair – as is her breathtaking manipulation of narrative time. Here is a writer who mobilises the technical strategies of modernist fiction and makes them exhilaratingly her own.

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