Sophie Cunningham – författare

Melbourne’s a city you get to know from the inside out — you have to walk it to love it. My favourite time to do this is at night. That’s when you capture glimpses of people — eating, laughing, talking, arguing, watching TV and reading — through halfopen terrace house doors and windows. That’s when you see a shaft of moonlight shoot bright down a bluestone lane, though, as often as not, by the time you look up to see the source of the light a cloud has moved across the sky and the moon has disappeared. It is a city of inside places and conversation. Of intimacy. It’s a city that lives in its head. Melbourne begins on Black Saturday, the day that bushfires tore through the outskirts of Melbourne, destroying the townships of Marysville and Kinglake and shattering thousands of lives. In this bestselling book, Sophie Cunningham writes about what happened over the year that followed. She tries to capture the texture of the city, journeying into her own recollections of the city she grew up in and its history, along the way. Sit through a heatwave, visit the drains underneath the city, participate in a letterpress workshop, wander alongside the Yarra now protected by its traditional custodians the Wurundjeri, cycle alongside tram tracks and cheer at the footy. Live through the drought before the storm, the rain before yet more fire and days of searing heat. Along the way Cunningham shares her Melbourne, its stories and its characters, loving and hating its weather all the while. City of conversations, city of literature, layered and connected, Melbourne evokes the city’s spirit and heart. In her new Introduction Cunningham returns to Melbourne after a period away and reflects on how much her city has changed since Melbourne was first published in 2011: it is hotter, growing more trees and well and truly on the rise. A deeply personal portrait of Melbourne by renowned writer and previous editor of Meanjin, Sophie CunninghamExplores the major influences that have shaped the city – Indigenous water management, weather, music, laneways, AFL, theatre, coffee, food, books, the Yarra River, creeks, cycling, pubs, suburbia and transportConsiders how bushfires and drastically changing weather patterns have affected MelburniansAuthor is one of our most prominent writers and essayists, and a regular at writers’ festivals and literary eventsUpdated edition of a classic with a new Introduction in which Cunningham reflects on how Melbourne has changed since her book was first published in 2011Melbourne was the bestselling title of all the books in the City SeriesShe notes that Melbourne is on track to become Australia’s most populous city

Sometimes you need to go deep into the past, to make sense of the present.   Alice had not expected to spend the first twenty years of the twenty-first century writing about Leonard Woolf. When she stood on Morell Bridge watching fireworks explode from the rooftops of Melbourne at the start of a new millennium, she had only two thoughts. One was: the fireworks are better in Sydney. The other was: was the world’s technology about to crash down around her? The world’s technology did not crash. But there were worse disasters to come: Environmental collapse. The return of fascism. Wars. A sexual reckoning. A plague. Uncertain of what to do she picks up an unfinished project and finds herself trapped with the ghosts of writers past. What began as a novel about a member of the Bloomsbury set, colonial administrator, publisher and husband of one the most famous English writers of the twentieth century becomes something else altogether. Complex, heartfelt, darkly funny and deeply moving, this is Sophie Cunningham’s most important book to date – a dazzlingly original novel about what it’s like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.​

'This Devastating Fever is a very good novel.’ – Howard Jacobson, New Statesman'I loved this book. I absolutely loved it.’ – Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap and Barracuda'This is a great novel of enduring significance and enormous beauty.’ – Sydney Morning HeraldSometimes you need to delve into the past, to make sense of the present. Alice had not expected to spend most of the twenty-first century writing about Leonard Woolf. When she stood on Morell Bridge watching fireworks explode from the rooftops of Melbourne at the start of a new millennium, she had only two thoughts. One was: the fireworks are better in Sydney. The other was: is Y2K going to be a thing? Y2K was not a thing. But there were worse disasters to come. Environmental collapse. The return of fascism. Wars. A sexual reckoning. A plague. Uncertain of what to do she picks up an unfinished project and finds herself trapped with the ghosts of writers past. What began as a novel about a member of the Bloomsbury Set becomes something else altogether. Complex, heartfelt, darkly funny and deeply moving, this is a dazzlingly original novel about what it’s like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.

Tippy and her baby Jellybean live in a beautiful eucalyptus forest.One day, they wake up and sniff the air. It's smokey, hot and windy.Kangaroos and wallabies are bounding.Lizards and snakes are slithering.Wombats are heading to their burrows.The cockatoos take off in an enormous flock.Tippy can't hop. Or run. Or fly.Instead she shelters her baby in the only way she can…This is the uplifting story of a mother koala who saved her baby from a bushfire, and the dedicated vets who look after them until they are healed and ready to go home.Proceeds from this book will raise money for the Bushfire Emergency Wildlife Fund.