It’s good to see a collection of short stories on the shortlist for SE Asia and Pacific Best Book – Amanda Lohrey’s Reading Madame Bovary.
Other books I recognise are That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott and of course Lloyd Jones’s Hand Me Down World. Other Australian finalists were Stephen Orr for Time’s Long Ruin and Notorious by Roberta Lowing
Three Australians made it onto the Best First Book shortlist – The Body in the Clouds by Ashley Hay, Traitor by Stephen Daisley and A Few Right Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill.
Last year Glenda Guest won the regional Best First Book and the overall Best First Book for Siddon Rock.