About Us

Bonfire Books is an Australian independent publisher founded in Victoria in 2019 to find the best in new writing and the lost works of our literary inheritance. We note a lack of perspectives in the Australian mainstream that adequately address the rushing complexity of contemporary life. We seek to uphold the best of our literary tradition and welcome subtle and intrepid work of cutting wisdom, grim truth and unflinching soul.

It started out as simple idea. What if we turned a historical moment on its head? What if there were to be a provocative energy announced by the cleansing of fire and the purge of vanity? What if a tower of flames, fuelled by the detritus of distraction, could cast a light upon the darkness of our literary poverty, bringing warmth and life to the cold sterility of the simulation that is ‘entertainment’?

The imperatives of commerce bear down upon literary creativity, stifling, shuttering and squeezing what remains of it into a product fit for fast consumption rather than self-reflection or the expression of  truth and emotion.

We believe that the truth of life is contained and sustained by stories. We seek to unearth and bring to a burning light these stories, in both their beauty and their rawness.

We had something to say and nowhere to say it, and we soon learned we were in good company. We work with both dead and up-and-coming authors to produce books worthy of a literary bonfire, distinguishing our editorial vision through the encouragement of eccentric perspective, irreverent humour and rich combinations of old and contemporary forms.