This Devastating Fever

Written by Sophie Cunningham
Ultimo Press (2022)
The bibliography for This Devastating Fever can be found here.

Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (2023)

Sometimes you need to delve into the past, to make sense of the present.

Alice had not expected to spend the first twenty years of the twenty-first century writing about Leonard Woolf. When she stood on Morell Bridge watching fireworks explode from the rooftops of Melbourne at the start of a new millennium, she had only two thoughts. One was: the fireworks are better in Sydney. The other was: was the world’s technology about to crash down around her? The world’s technology did not crash. But there were worse disasters to come: Environmental collapse. The return of fascism. Wars. A sexual reckoning. A plague.

Uncertain of what to do she picks up an unfinished project and finds herself trapped with the ghosts of writers past. What began as a novel about a member of the Bloomsbury set, colonial administrator, publisher and husband of one the most famous English writers of the twentieth century becomes something else altogether.

Complex, heartfelt, darkly funny and deeply moving, this is Sophie Cunningham’s most important book to date – a dazzlingly original novel about what it’s like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.​

Profiles
The Guardian (2022) – Sophie Cunningham on the ‘crazy challenge’ of bringing Leonard and Virginia Woolf to life
Sydney Morning Herald (2022) – ‘I thought, I’m going to die and I won’t have finished this bloody novel’
ABC RN The Book Show (2022) – Sophie Cunningham discusses her latest book This Devastating Fever

Reviews
Canberra Times (2022) – This Devastating Fever by Sophie Cunningham review – The parallels of history cast anew
The Conversation (2022) – Sophie Cunningham’s pandemic novel admits literature can’t save us – but treasures it for trying
Sydney Morning Herald (2022) – It took 16 years to write – good thing this book is a beautiful, significant read
The Saturday Paper (2022) – Sophie Cunningham – This Devastating Fever
Sydney Review of Books (2022) – Sophie Cunningham’s Orbits