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10 Australian literary scandals

The Australian book world has long been enlivened with scams and misdemeanours.

5 May 2025 11:36

Thuy On

A stylised image of Pinocchio, his nose extended as he lies.

Writing and Publishing

Elastic truth-telling in Australian literary history is far from rare. Image: Shutterstock.

In light of the recent food fight between Nagi Maehashi and Brooke Bellamy over plagiarism allegations, ArtsHub has rustled up this piece – originally published three years ago on 28 June 2022 – as a reminder how common scandals are in the literary world. Remember the saga with John Hughes?

But Hughes’ carelessness with crediting other writers’ words (or his deliberate intertextual referencing) is just the latest of many scandals in the publishing world.

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Thuy On

Thuy On is the former Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian. She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025). Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy