Andrew Bolt: Australian literature is now a basket case of unreadable work by ‘woke’ female writers

Australian novels are now reading more like lectures than entertaining pieces of work, with most written and published by “woke” females.

Two stunning surveys may help to explain a great mystery: why are so many serious Australian novels so unreadable?

Why do many read more like lectures than entertainment?

I love books. I own thousands. But let me quote the start of Praiseworthy, which this month won the $60,000 Stella Prize for best Australian novel by a woman.

I should add it’s by Alexis Wright, who identifies as Aboriginal and is a climate hysteric. Bonus points!

It starts: “Oracle 1 ... speak.

“Beginning with story ...

“Once upon a fine time for some people in the world, but not so plenteous, nor perfect for others, there lived a culture dreamer obsessing about the era. He was no great dreamer, no greater than the rest of the juggernauts in his heartbroken, storm-country people’s humanity. They knew just as much as he did about surviving on a daily basis, and about how to make sacrifices of themselves in all the cataclysmic times generated by the mangy dogs who had stolen their traditional land. These people, after the generations of dealing with the land-thief criminals ...”

Praiseworthy sold fewer than 500 copies in the bookshops in a week.

Dear god, enough! Yet for chapter after chapter it goes on like that, with no dialogue and minimal plot – ranting about a victim of racist whites who has a son called “Aboriginal Sovereignty” and fights the climate “crisis” with donkey power.

Now to the surveys. One, by the Australian Publishers Association, says 84 per cent of people working in publishing are women, and 21 per cent are lesbian, gay, transgender.

Even more extraordinary, 35 per cent say they have a mental health condition, and 85 per cent have a degree.

Dare I say the people deciding which books to publish seem from woke central?

So it’s perhaps not surprising that conservatives, particularly men, complain they aren’t getting published.

Indeed, a Creative Australia survey says from 1988 to 2023 the number of paid male writers fell, from 1760 to 1496.

Meanwhile, paid women writers exploded from 1440 to 7304, so we now have five female writers for every male.

Who’s reading all their stuff?

Actually not many. Just 9 per cent of paid writers now say their earnings meet their “minimum income needs”.

Even Praiseworthy, after the publicity of the prize, sold fewer than 500 copies in the bookshops in a week.

All this suggests dangerous questions. Are women more woke? Do publishers care more about politics than good reads?

Is Australian literature now a basket case?

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Australian literature is now a basket case of unreadable work by ‘woke’ female writers