SHORTLISTED, STELLA PRIZE 2025
SHORTLISTED, VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD, FICTION, 2025
SHORTLISTED, AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR, FICTION, 2025
LONGLISTED, 2025 MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD
'How rare, this delicacy-this calm, sweet, desolated wisdom.' Helen Garner
'Stupendously good' Christos Tsiolkas
In her unforgettable new novel, Victorian Premier's Literary Award-winner Melanie Cheng has created this year's literary masterpiece.
Amy, Jin and Lucie are leading isolated lives in their partially renovated, inner city home. They are not happy, but they are also terrified of change. When they buy a pet rabbit for Lucie, and then Amy's mother, Pauline, comes to stay, the family is forced to confront long-buried secrets. Will opening their hearts to the rabbit help them to heal or only invite further tragedy? The Burrow tells an unforgettable story about grief and hope. With her characteristic compassion and eye for detail, Melanie Cheng reveals the lives of others-even of a small rabbit.
MORE PRAISE FOR THE BURROW-
'Cheng is an elegant, unpretentious writer, carefully observant of the rhythms of ordinary human life-but when her imagination moves outside, into the natural world, The Burrow becomes something deeper, stranger, and truly beautiful.' Oprah Daily
'Best novel I read all year. And I read some great novels this year. A slender work of such composure and grace and humanity...It's superb.' Annabel Crabb
'An exquisite portrait of grief and the small things that save us. I was mesmerised.' Shankari Chandran
'Such a fan of Melanie Cheng's work. Quiet writing with such fierce emotion. This one's another gift of a novel.' Benjamin Law
'An exquisite morsel of a book where each character is perfectly realised through their response to a shared grief.' Pip Williams, Best Books of 2024, Spectrum
'Beautifully capture s the intensity of living in close quarters...A tender story of grief, hope and a pet rabbit.' Justine Hyde, Best Books of 2024, Saturday Paper
'Melanie Cheng's tender novella has stayed with me since I read it in a single setting...This book describes so much about how grief can push us apart then pull us back together; and the relationship between Lucie and Pauline is so warmly, vividly drawn that I couldn't shake it.' Steph Harmon, Best Books of 2024, Guardian
'Gulped it. I've been a Melanie Cheng fan since our first books came out. But this one is next level-it conveys so much human experience so sparingly that it seems to defy the laws of gravity. Stunning.' Sarah Krasnostein
'This beautifully contained and elegant novel resulted in me gasping for air...A gift.' Chris Gordon, Readings
'The Burrow...skilfully brings coherence to its explorations of compassion, commitment, and suffering.' Booklist
' There's an incredible humanity in being a doctor, an incredible ability to read people... The Burrow is very moving, very beautifully done...Really admire this one.' Claire Nichols, ABC RN Breakfast
'On the surface, The Burrow is a very quiet, understated book; but of course there is a lot going on beneath that surface, down in the burrow...Definitely recommended.' Through the Biblioscope
'A triumph of restrained and tender storytelling...A nuanced study of one family's grief, but it's also a magnificent portrait of modern loneliness.' Books+Publishing
An absolutely beautiful book...It might be my novel of the year.' Michael Williams, ABC RN The Bookshelf
'Gathers a delicate balance of modernity and the past...A quiet novel with moments that feel like they could explode...Reminds us how quickly life can change in an instant, whether you are a human or a rabbit.' Book Muse
'The feeling one gets when reading The Burrow echoes its title- one feels held and safe, as if one is in the hands of someone who knows exactly what they are doing.' Saturday Paper
'An elegant, tender story of grief, hope-and a pet rabbit...The narrative is deftly structured to reveal, gradually, the history of the family, while also analysing the minds and souls of its members with tenderness and compassion.' Age
'Cheng's prose is simple and unadorned, but cuts directly to the heart of things- a single sentence can expose a world of truth.' Big Issue
