This Devastating Fever

Shortlisted for The Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction 2023

'This is a great novel of enduring significance and enormous beauty.' - Sydney Morning Herald

Sometimes you need to delve into the past, to make sense of the present

Alice had not expected to spend most of the twenty-first century writing about Leonard Woolf. When she stood on Morell Bridge watching fireworks explode from the rooftops of Melbourne at the start of a new millennium, she had only two thoughts. One was: the fireworks are better in Sydney. The other was: is Y2K going to be a thing? Y2K was not a thing. But there were worse disasters to come. Environmental collapse. The return of fascism. Wars. A sexual reckoning. A plague.

Uncertain of what to do she picks up an unfinished project and finds herself trapped with the ghosts of writers past. What began as a novel about a member of the Bloomsbury Set, colonial administrator, publisher and husband of one the most famous English writers of the last hundred years becomes something else altogether.

Complex, heartfelt, darkly funny and deeply moving, this is Sophie Cunningham's most important book to date - a dazzlingly original novel about what it's like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.

About the Author

Sophie Cunningham is the author of eight books including her recent collection of essays, City of Trees and has written both fiction and nonfiction, for adults and children. She has a passion for trees, walking and broader environmental issues, and every day she posts an image of a tree on her Instagram @sophtreeofday.

A stalwart of the Australian literary scene, Sophie also works as a writing teacher and was a co-founder of The Stella Prize, former editor of Meanjin, and former chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. She lives in Melbourne.