Belinda Castles
Bluebottle cover design by nadabackovic.com
IN THE PRESS
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Hannah & Emil
‘The judges were impressed with the author’s ability to render, with measured vividness, the lives of individuals within cataclysmic historic events where safety is hard-won and exceptional. Hannah and Emil is an extended affirmation of the endurance of belief in work, love and human dignity.’
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The River Baptists
‘The stories of [the characters] eventually intersect as they unfold in a beautifully structured manner that allows intense and even shocking dramas to develop, but never produces sensationalism.’
‘...even the least worthy types emerge with depth and sympathy, as their stories slowly emerge from the surface to reveal grief and shame, remorse or even tenderness pushed down for too many years.’
Debra Adelaide,
The Australian Literary Review
Judges’ report, Asher Literary Award Brenda Walker, Miriam Cosic & Leslie Cannold
BIO
Belinda Castles won the Australian/Vogel's literary award for The River Baptists in 2006 and was one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists for 2008. Her next novel, Hannah & Emil, won the Asher Literary Award for 2012-13 and Bluebottle was longlisted for the Stella Prize for 2019. She is also the editor of Reading like an Australian Writer (2021).
She has taught writing in Australia and the UK and is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Sydney. Belinda lives with her family in Sydney.
Photo by E. Castles
REVIEWS
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Reading like an Australian Writer
‘The success of Reading Like an Australian Writer is heightened by Castles’ inspired arrangement of the essays, creating clusters and flow that enhance every piece. Many pairings speak lightly to each other...You’ll find your own windows upon windows into our literature. Reading Like an Australian Writer is a snapshot of Australian writing that is of its moment and, like the books in its pages, will reward rereading into the future.’
Susan Wyndham,
Sydney Morning Herald
Bluebottle
‘What a revelation is Belinda Castles’ stunning fourth novel, Bluebottle...What matters is the humanity of Castles’ people and how they imperfectly negotiate the waves of adults that buffeted their younger selves. Bluebottle is a wonderful novel and a likely turning point in Castles’ career. ’
The Saturday Paper
Bluebottle
‘Bluebottle is a tour de force, utterly assured, intricately designed and brilliantly imagined. This is a remarkable portrait of family anguish, gradually unfolded: engrossing, suspenseful and deeply moving.’
Gail Jones
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Bluebottle
‘Every unhappy family may be unhappy in its own way, but it takes a writer of some skill to reveal fully the essence of that uniqueness. This is what Belinda Castles achieves in Bluebottle, an elegantly crafted, psychologically complex novel that takes up the motif of the dysfunctional family haunted by its past, and renders from it a story that is gripping and incredibly moving.’
Dianne Stubbings,
The Australian
Bluebottle
‘This is a stunningly written novel, atmospheric and yet claustrophobic. The novel moves between the past and the present, slowly unfolding the family’s secrets amidst descriptions of the beach
so evocative that you can almost feel the sand and taste the water.’
Melinda Woledge,
Good Reading
Hannah & Emil
‘The most gripping passages of Hannah & Emil involve the fearsome prospect of Emil losing his young son, Hans, to the terrible ideology of Nazism and here Castles writes with great poignancy about the corruption of innocents.’
Hannah & Emil
‘The judges were impressed with the author’s ability to render, with measured vividness, the lives of individuals within cataclysmic historic events where safety is hard-won and exceptional. Hannah and Emil is an extended affirmation of the endurance of belief in work, love and human dignity.’
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Judges’ report, Asher Literary Award Brenda Walker, Miriam Cosic & Leslie Cannold
The River Baptists
‘The stories of [the characters] eventually intersect as they unfold in a beautifully structured manner that allows intense and even shocking dramas to develop, but never produces sensationalism.’
‘...even the least worthy types emerge with depth and sympathy, as their stories slowly emerge from the surface to reveal grief and shame, remorse or even tenderness pushed down for too many years.’
Debra Adelaide,
The Australian Literary Review
Lucy Clark,
The Australian
CONTACT
Follow me:
For media inquiries regarding novels, please contact
publicity@allenandunwin.com and for Reading like an Australian Writer annie.zhang@newsouthbooks
.com.au
For rights enquiries, please contact Pippa Masson,
Curtis Brown Australia
reception@curtisbrown.com.au