Shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize

An Isolated Incident – Emily Maguire

Fiction · Pan Macmillan

An Isolated Incident

About the book

“Australian society’s attitudes towards violence against women are inevitably at the heart of this topical and accomplished novel.

– 2017 Stella Prize Judges

About the author


Emily Maguire

Further Reading



“Rather than creating a simple case of goodies and baddies, Maguire subtly examines the complexity of the human personality and what leads somebody to feel destructive… This hugely chilling and evocative story, mixing lyrical language and brutal events, is told with great psychological acuity.” Anita Sethi, Sydney Morning Herald

“This is a harrowing, fascinating, compelling work from an accomplished and thoughtful Australian writer who uses the vehicle of a young woman’s death to question and explore society’s treatment of women, the everyday violence it condones and its intrusive fascination with the murder of pretty young women.” Susanne Leal, The Australian

“Within its gripping storytelling An Isolated Incident raises many disturbing questions about men and women, and about attitudes to what can seem the inevitability of violence by one sex upon the other. But above all this is a powerful and provocative examination of grief, and in Chris Emily Maguire has created a character who resounds in the imagination.” Linda Funnell, Newtown Review of Books

“Maguire’s prose is concise and confident, affecting without being maudlin, horrifying without being gruesome.” Alan Vaarwerk, Readings

Judges’ report


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