Australian fiction and poetry at Frankfurt

Australian publishers are excited to pitch a wide range of fiction titles this year, including major award winners, debuts and follow-ups, in genres ranging from complex literary works to page-turning thrillers. Below are some titles Australian publishers look forward to highlighting at the fair.

Literary and contemporary fiction

After taking out the Australian awards that really count (in sales as well as prestige)—the Miles Franklin and Stella Prize—as well as the Queensland Literary Award for fiction and the ALS Gold Medal, Alex Wright’s Praiseworthy (Giramondo) has surely gained a reputation outside of Australia. (It also took home this year’s James Tait Black fiction prize in the UK.)

Giramondo will be pitching this modern masterpiece alongside Chinese Postman (October 2024), a new novel about the experience of old age by ‘one of Australia’s most important novelists’, Brian Castro. In this book, Abraham Quin is a migrant, thrice-divorced, a one-time postie and professor, a writer now living alone in the Adelaide Hills. ‘He reflects on his life with what he calls “the mannered and meditative inaction of age”, offering up memories and anxieties, obsessions and opinions, his thoughts on solitude, writing, friendship and time.’

Giramondo is also excited to pitch Raaza Jamshed’s debut novel, What Kept You?, which focuses on a young Muslim woman, Jahan, who leaves Lahore for the outskirts of Sydney at the age of 18, to escape the fear of violence that haunts her life in Pakistan; Jahan’s story is addressed to her grandmother, with an episodic structure that ‘mirrors the fragmented nature of her memories’.

From Pantera, An Onslaught of Light (Natasha Rai, March 2025), longlisted for several unpublished manuscript awards, is ‘a luminous literary migrant fiction debut’. Archana and her family arrive in Australia from India searching for a better life, but the move is not easy on anyone. ‘Years later, Arch lives her ideal solitary, isolated life. But with her father’s illness, she is pulled back into the world and a potential new start’, says the publisher. ‘This is a stunning debut with literary cross-over appeal from a committed writer with a promising future,’ says Pantera editorial director Kate Cuthbert, adding that it has already garnered praise from Miles Franklin winner Shankari Chandran, who says: ‘Haunting and heartbreaking, Rai’s debut novel deftly weaves a tale of guilt and atonement … a powerful journey from alienation to connection, from loneliness to love, from darkness to light.’

Also from Pantera, The Society of Literary Marauders (Sasha Wasley, July 2025) is ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho meets The Secret History’: ‘In an Oxford University women’s dormitory in 1928, a secret society is formed. Membership rests on one thing: each Marauder must have previously stolen a book.’ Says Pantera publishing director Lex Hirst: ‘Sasha’s characters, including the brilliant Annie, bring the world of 1920s Oxford to life. Her journey to achieving her dream and the contrast between her lofty dreams and the reality of the elitism she encounters will both delight and challenge readers in this engrossing story.’

From Fremantle, Geraldine is a debut from Andrea Thompson, who has her lead character ‘pinching leopard skin underwear and absconding from a Rhodesian boarding school before becoming a leader in the Australian music scene where she can finally be seen the way she’s always seen herself’. The Skeleton House (Katherine Allum, Fremantle) ‘shows us the claustrophobic intensity of conservative small towns in the Nevada desert’, while in Jasper Cliff, Ned Kelly Award winner Josh Kemp shares ‘just how horrifying it is to face your history amidst the searing heat and vast, epic landscapes of the East Pilbara’.

In the suspenseful literary fiction Thunderhead (Miranda Darling, Scribe), ‘seemingly unremarkable young mother’ Winona is unobtrusive, quietly going about her tasks, ‘but within is a vivid, chaotic self, teeming with voices—a mind both wild and precise’. Unfolding over a single day, Thunderhead is ‘a sharp, illuminating exploration of domestic entrapment and abuse … for readers of Claire Keegan, Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Jenny Offill’.

Scribe will also be pitching The Knowing (Madeleine Ryan, February 2025), ‘a brilliant new novel about the mess that comes before salvation’ from the author of A Room Called Earth. ‘Camille lives in the country. She’s forgotten her phone. She’s taking the train to work. She’s got period pain. She can’t escape herself … or her toxic boss, Holly. And it’s Valentine’s Day.’ The Knowing is ‘a day in the life of a woman who goes to work as usual while dreaming of more’.

Also from Scribe, Time Together (Luke Horton, March 2025) is the second novel from the author of The Fogging. The story of a beach holiday told by four different people, it’s a ‘portrait of contemporary midlife, parenting, and grief, of how love endures and transforms over the years, and how the past continues to work itself out in the present’.

Secrets of Maiden’s Cove (Erin Palmisano, Hachette) is ‘perfect escapist beach-read fiction, from a #1 NZ bestseller’, in which Grace inherits her late father’s beloved restaurant in Chesapeake Bay, where rumours of mermaids abound, and ‘pours her heart into reviving the family restaurant, forging a new life—and maybe even finding love’. US and UK rights to the title have already been sold.

From Spinifex, The Leaves (Jacqueline Rule) is a debut novel in which Luke’s mother, Faith, dies suddenly and ‘a chain of catastrophic events unravels’. It is a novel that ‘deals sensitively with the repercussions of the Stolen Generations, the foster system and the injustices meted out to the young Indigenous men trying to survive’, according to the publisher.

Finally in fiction, Upswell will be offering Stray Cats and Bad Fish: Silence of the Eels (Rachel Coad, September 2025). Says publisher Terri-ann White: ‘This is Rachel Coad’s second graphic novel featuring her obsessive love affair with contemporary music and her impeccable drawing style.’

Thrillers and romance

Spite Pie (Patrick Lenton, Pantera, April 2025) is the journalist’s first novel-length fiction, ‘a genuinely funny queer romance novel, which follows Jeremy as he prepares for the reunion of his prestigious creative writing program’. Desperate to impress his more successful ex, Jeremy begins a program to develop a perfect life. Says Pantera: ‘Spite Pie will appeal to romance readers, readers interested in LGBTQIA+ stories, and readers looking for something light and accessible—readers of titles such as Red, White and Royal Blue, The Charm Offensive and Boyfriend Material.’ ‘Patrick is a unique and vibrant voice, and I’m delighted to be bringing this messy tale of love and revenge to readers seeking feel-good fiction with depth and charm,’ adds Cuthbert.

Pantera will be pitching a ‘hooky duology with both YA and adult appeal’ by Bronwyn Eley: The Rule (March 2025) and The Oath (September 2025) tell the story of Zinha, raised among a secret underworld of assassins, whose first assignment is to go undercover to the enemy kingdom of Maetora to infiltrate the competition wherein the heir to the Maetoran throne chooses their spouse. ‘The Rule is pacy, addictive, accessible and sexy,’ says Cuthbert. ‘It will sit comfortably beside other romantasy titles but also those looking for edgier reads, with a darker, more complex plot and a higher sensuality content.’

From Fremantle on the crime fiction front: Cutler by David Whish-Wilson ‘takes you over the horizon and into the brutal world of deep sea fishing, where life is cheap’, while Ngaio Marsh Award winner Alan Carter takes a deep dive into the local fishing industry in a crime novel about salmon farming called Prize Catch.

On offer from Hachette is See How They Fall (Rachel Paris, March 2025), a ‘twisting thriller … for fans of Lucy Foley, Liane Moriarty and Succession, to which US and film rights have already sold, in which ‘an opulent family weekend away turns into a nightmare, which is only the surface of a complex web of lies and betrayal with the potential to bring down an empire’; and Gunnawah (Ronni Salt, January 2025), which the publisher calls ‘a captivating and compulsive crime thriller about guns, drugs and a young woman dead on the money’, for fans of Australian crime writers Jane Harper and Chris Hammer. Set in 1974, this book follows 19-year-old Gunnawah Gazette cadet Adelaide, whose routine assignment ‘soon becomes a river of corruption and crime’.

From Melbourne Books, Fire in the Head (Daniel Oakman, March 2025) is a psychological thriller ‘that goes to the heart of the deep taboo of child assault, and the ramifications of trauma later in life’. ‘Part crime drama, part coming-of-age tale, part modern psychological odyssey, Oakman’s novel is a gripping, unsettling and powerful story about self-discovery, the importance of friendship and the transcendent power of words’, says the publisher.

Poetry

Upswell will also be pitching Fitzroy North 3068 (March 2025), a poetry collection by Yvette Henry Holt, which is named for an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Says White: ‘This long-overdue second poetry volume by Yvette Henry Holt sizzles with sexy sapphic intrigue.’

Also in poetry, Giramondo offers ‘a moving testament to the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people’ in rock flight (Hasib Hourani), a book-length poem that, over seven chapters, ‘follows a personal and historical narrative to compose an understated yet powerful allegory of Palestine’s occupation’. Rights to the title have already been sold to Prototype in the UK and New Directions in the US.

Pictured (L–R): Patrick Lenton and Yvette Henry Holt.

Category: Think Australian feature