Robbie Arnott burst on to the literary scene with his gloriously imaginative debut, Flames, a novel of stylistic ingenuity that traversed genres with dense poetic prose. His new book The Rain Heron is similarly inventive, the story of a mythic bird with extraordinary powers, able to save and destroy the land, both hunted and protected by flawed humans. With lush lyrical language, The Rain Heron is at once ecological parable and thriller, and an audacious, immersive work from one of Australia’s most original new talents.

Chaired by Jane Howard