THEIR BRILLIANT CAREERS
by Ryan O'Neill
The fantastic lives of sixteen extraordinary Australian writers

Absurd, original and highly addictive, Their Brilliant Careers purports to be a collection of biographies of the leading lights of Australian literature, including a neglected Nobel laureate, a racist sci-fi populist, a shameless plagiarist, a vicious editor, a self-obsessed muse and a hoax poet.

In truth, every one of them is made up. Ryan O’Neill’s hilarious and dazzlingly clever piece of mischief-making sends up Australian literary culture while creating a richly imagined, vendetta-strewn world where O’Neill himself – or a version of him – is one of the characters. The elaborate joke even extends to the introduction and the index.

Their Brilliant Careers won the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction – Australia’s richest literary prize – and was shortlisted for the prestigious Miles Franklin Award. Lightning Books now publishes it in the UK for the first time. We cannot recommend it highly enough.