The Latest Breaking News from Ultimo Press

No God But Us by Bobuq Sayed review – a buzzy and political queer love story

Two gay Afghan men find each other in Istanbul, in a much-hyped debut that fails to sustain the killer energy of its opening act

The Guardian - AU · Jun 29

Best Australian books out in May: Robert Forster’s crime caper, a ‘superb’ new novel and Periodic Bitch

Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on

The Guardian - AU · May 6

Mantle by Romy Ash review – an exquisitely wild and exhilarating vision of the near future

Thirteen years after her celebrated debut, the author returns with a bizarre, evocative work that merges science and the surreal

The Guardian - AU · Apr 23

The Theory of Everything by Yumna Kassab review – this kaleidoscopic experiment is a delight

With her fifth book, Kassab leans even further into her fragmented, polyphonic style, exploding the possibilities of what the novel can be and do

The Guardian - AU · Mar 27, 2025

Signs of Damage by Diana Reid review – gripping thriller of unsolved mysteries

In her third book, the author of Love and Virtue slyly subverts the trauma plot to take aim at our impulse to reduce the messiness of life to a neat narrative

The Guardian - AU · Mar 13, 2025

Uncertainties, mysteries, doubts: Madeleine Watts takes an elegiac road trip through the American southwest

In December 1817, the Romantic poet John Keats sent a letter to his brothers George and Thomas, in which he celebrated a quality in Shakespeare’s work he termed “negative capability”. He defined this as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after…

The Conversation · Mar 2, 2025

Sydney writers’ festival chair resigns amid debate over Israel-Palestine programming

Outgoing chair Kathy Shand says ‘freedom of expression cannot and should not be used as a justification to accept language and conversations that compromise the festival’

The Guardian - AU · Feb 25, 2025

Unfinished Business by Shankari Chandran review – page-turning political thriller from Miles Franklin winner

The award-winning author has hit a more commercial note with this nuanced thriller about a CIA agent investigating the assassination of a journalist in Sri Lanka

The Guardian - AU · Jan 23, 2025

Politica by Yumna Kassab review – the human cost of war

Set amid an unnamed conflict in the Middle East, Kassab’s third novel is told in fragments – a resonant choice when telling the stories of families splintered and lives cut short

The Guardian - AU · Feb 1, 2024

‘Ballsy’, ‘very funny’, ‘read in one sitting’: the best Australian books out in October

Each month, Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have already devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on

The Guardian - AU · Oct 3, 2023