The Critics Report 2026

It’s that time of year again: Sydney Review of Books’ annual round-up of the most consequential events and hotly debated issues in the literary world. From the passing of local legends (Dhompoo Lionel Fogarty, David Malouf, and Hilary McPhee) to concerns over the number of books being rushed to market, 2026 has been a year of retrospection and self-inspection. Does the revival of interest in the Classics herald a new age of sense and sensibility? Or does our tarrying with the backlist say everything about our future tripping? Join SRB editors James Jiang and Tiffany Tsao and their guests – author Briohny Doyle, publisher Ivor Indyk, and editor and bookseller Jody Lee – as they brood, Tiresias-like, over this annum’s goings-on and foretell what it all bodes. SPEAKERS: Briohny Doyle is the author of three novels, Why We Are Here (2023), Echolalia (2021), The Island Will Sink (2016), and a book of nonfiction, Adult Fantasy (2017). Her books have appeared on lists for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, the Readings New Australian Fiction Prize, and the Melbourne Prize for Literature. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Sydney. Ivor Indyk is director of the Australian literary publisher Giramondo, and Emeritus Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. He was the founding editor of HEAT magazine and co-founder of the Sydney Review of Books. James Jiang edits the Sydney Review of Books, based in the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. Prior to becoming an editor, he was a literary studies academic and critic, writing on poetry, modernist literature, and criticism for a variety of publications, local and international. Jody Lee is an editor, bookseller, and recovering publisher with over two decades’ experience. She holds a Master of Research (Creative Writing and Literature) from Western Sydney University, and was formerly an associate publisher at Simon & Schuster, and a commissioning and project editor at Penguin Random House and the ABC. She now works as a freelance editor and part-time as a bookseller at Gleebooks. She is currently completing a novel. Tiffany Tsao is Deputy Editor at Sydney Review of Books. In her spare time, she writes and translates. But Won’t I Miss Me (2026) is her most recent novel. Her translations of Indonesian fiction have been awarded the NSW Premier’s Translation Prize, longlisted for the International Booker Prize, and most recently, shortlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the US.