Spinifex Press

Merlinda BOBIS

Most everything has dried up: water, the womb, even the love among lovers. Hunger is rife, except across the border. One night, a village is bombed. Nine-year old Amedea is buried underground and sleeps to survive. Ten years later, she wakes with a locust embedded in her brow.

This political fable is a girl’s magical journey through the border. The border has cut the human heart. Can she repair it with the story odf a small life? This is the Locust Girl’s dream, her lovesong—

For those walking to the border for dear life
For thioe guarding the border for dear life

Awards
Winner Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
Winner, Philippines National Book Award for Best Novel in English

Merlinda Bobis is a Philippine-Australian writer, author of six novels, a short story collection and five poetry titles. Her books have won awards in Australia, the Philippines and US. In 2025, she was named as one of the top ten female novelists shaping the literary scene in Southeast Asia. She regards her writing as a homecoming: a return to roots, a retrieval through memory and a reckoning with loss, hopefully with care and grace. She lives and writes on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country (Canberra).

It’s allegorically pertinent not just to the question of refugees but also to how the future might play out if climate change is as disastrous as some of the modelling suggests. —Ed Wright, The Australian

There were many fine and stylistically accomplished works among this year’s entries, but the distinctiveness, sweep and visual power of this short novel set it apart. —Christina Stead Judges’ Report

It is no surprise that a dystopian novel about climate change has won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. —Susan Wyndham, Sydney Morning Herald

2011 - 210 x 148 mm - 192 pp - AUD$26.95 - ISBN: 9781742199627
Pb $26.95
Fiction
Rights: World X Philippines, Tamil, Italian

Christine BALINT

It is 1756. In the mountain village of Piovene, outside Venice, 13-year-old Anna Maria Bonon lives a spartan life with her grandmother and father. In the daytime, she cards wool at the local mill. At home, she raises silkworms. She is afraid of her violent father, Giacomo, who scrambles for work and drinks his sorrows away at the osteria. When Giacomo is arrested for a public brawl, Anna Maria and her grandmother walk miles to the court in Vicenza.

But instead of trying to free him, Anna Maria accuses her father of unspeakable crimes that he committed against her. The Council of Ten from Venice arrive to investigate. She is the single witness. Challenged by her grandmother and the local priest to say she lied, Anna Maria is torn between loyalty to her elders and telling the truth.

Set against the evocative background of the fecund Veneto region, A Single Witness provides an insight into 18^th-century village life in Italy where being a young girl with an abusive father is a tough reality that would have crushed many others. Drawing closely on original trial documents from Venetian archives, prize-winning novelist Christine Balint brings to light the true story of Anna Maria Bonon and her brave pursuit of justice at a time when a man’s authority over his family was unquestioned.

Awards for previous books:
2021 Water Music Viva la Novella Prize
1998 The Salt Letters, Australian/Vogel Literary Award

Christine Balint is the author of three novels. Her work has been published to critical acclaim in Australia, the United States, Germany and Italy, and she was named one of Barnes & Noble’s Great New Writers in 2001. Christine holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English and Modern European Studies and has undertaken international archival research in French, Italian and Hungarian. She has a PhD in Creative Arts from the University of Melbourne and has taught at several universities. She is the daughter of Hungarian / Transylvanian refugees and lives on Bunurong Land (the Mornington Peninsula) with her partner and two children.

2026 - 229 x 152 mm - 306 pp - AUD$34.95 - ISBN: 9781922964342
Fiction
Rights: World

Mij TANITH

when we were new
such formal words
in your email
please you wrote
for myself and my daughters
can I call you Mum
like our friend Mr Friday

In January 2023, an Afghan man – a long-term refugee living in Australia – walks into the home of two older women in Adelaide. What begins as a simple request for help evolves into a year-long journey of connection, resilience, and unexpected friendship. Through the story of Laila, a single mother with five daughters, and her growing relationship with the author, this work explores the power of human connection across seemingly insurmountable divides of language, culture, age, sexuality, and faith. Laila and her daughters now reside in Australia.

Awards
City of Adelaide Citizen of the Year, 2025 for her long-term advocacy and support for refugees.

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Mij Tanith has written plays, short fiction, poetry and longer narrative works. Her early work as a playwright began with Blind Circumstance (Griffin Theatre Company, 1985) and was followed by several commissioned plays in South Australia that addressed themes including adult literacy, environmental concerns, media ethics and schoolyard violence. Laila’s Story draws on for her long-term advocacy and support for refugees.

2026 - 229 x 152 mm - 97 pp - AUD$29.95 - ISBN: 9781922964328
Memoir / Poetry
Rights: World