Nicholas Jose has published three collections of short fiction, a memoir and eight novels, including The Idealist, which was shortlisted for the 2024 Age Book of the Year. He was Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Beijing from 1987 to 1990, and has taught at Adelaide, Australian National and Western Sydney Universities along with Bath Spa University, Beijing Foreign Studies, Harvard, Oxford and UNSAM Buenos Aires. He lives on unceded Kaurna land in Adelaide, South Australia, where he walks in the parklands most days.
THE FIRST WORD I REMEMBER being captivated by is ‘monotonous’. It must have been in primary school, when I was ten or eleven. I was drawn to the long, strange word. I liked the look of it, the repeated ohs and their symmetry on either…