6 Books Set in Sydney, Australia
Sydneysiders, here are some books that hit close to home
1 Roseghetto | Kirsty Jaggers
Where: Rosemeadow, Western suburbs
A 2023 release about growing up in Rosemeadow’s public housing.
Roseghetto follows the coming of age of Shayla. It is fast paced, but we know what stage of her life she is in by the book she is reading and the songs that her mother is listening too. Literature and music are their escape from poverty, abuse, and trauma.
This book is no fairytale. Even though Jaggers says this book is about breaking the poverty cycle, it is not about a magical and clean renewal. Rosemeadow’s public housing can be demolished (and it has been as part of the ongoing Rosemeadow Renewal Project), but the memories and trauma that people like Shayla carry are permanent.
2 Love and Virtue | Diana Reid
Where: the colleges of Sydney University, Inner West
A debut sensation about rape culture on the campus of a fictionalised Sydney University.
Love & Virtue gained massive popularity on release and for good reason. It is timely and satirical without turning the characters into unbelievable caricatures and without compromising on the quality of the writing. Reid’s novel is distinctly Australian, not just because she makes very Australian references, but because her descriptive and true-to-life writing sits at the same table as books by Tim Winton and Craig Silvey.
3 The Faculty | John Dale
Where: ‘Central Sydney University’, Inner West
Set in the Hogwarts-esque Humanities building of ‘Central Sydney University’ (Sydney Uni, is that you?), this sitcom-like book is about the demise of Sydney’s higher education.
This is another book about higher education in Sydney, but vastly different to Love & Virtue. The Faculty is about the staff rather than students, and based in a fictional Central Sydney University that generally embodies university life in Sydney.
Even though this novel has commentary about the problematic and corrupt aspects of higher education, it is primarily a comical character driven book — we empathise with the protagonist who enters the workforce for the first time and has to wade through wacky personalities to get her dream job.
4 The Women in Black | Madeleine St John
Where: ‘F. G. Goode’ / flagship David Jones, CBD
An Aussie classic, this is about the lives of the women working at a fictionalised David Jones in the 50s. Get ready for your suburb to be name-dropped.
One of the most delightful aspects of this novel is its on point observations about Sydney personalities and suburbs. I also loved the depiction of a growing multicultural Australia where characters find kindred spirits in people of ‘unfamiliar’ and different ethinicities and religions.
5 Looking for Alibrandi | Melina Marchetta
Where: Glebe, Inner West
A YA coming-of-age classic about Australian multiculturalism in the 90s.
This book is peak Australian — Josephine Alibrandi is an Italian-Australian Year 12 student struggling with love, family, the HSC, and her multicultural identity. She is also the most loveable Australian character I have ever met. She is wise and naive all at once, and despite her many mistakes and her tendency to speak before thinking, she is a good person — she reminds me of a modern Anne of Green Gables.
6 The Lebs | Michael Mohammed Ahmad
Where: Punchbowl, South-western Sydney
An emotionally charged book about a Lebanese student at Punchbowl Boys High School struggling to find belonging in the cultural cliques of the south-west suburbs.
Unlike The Women In Black and Looking for Alibrandi which are quiet celebrations of multiculturalism, this book is a loud protest of the dysfunction and pain that cultural differences can create. The protagonist is an angry and confused teenager who is burdened by his resentment towards both his parents’ culture and white Australian culture. He is made so unstable by what he sees as unreconcilable differences in competing cultural and socioeconomic identities.
