Australia's national literature is being swallowed up

In September, Hardie Grant, an independent stalwart of the Australian publishing scene, announced the acquisition of Pantera Press, a smaller independent publisher, with an eclectic list dominated by genre fiction and commercial non-fiction. This followed the news in August that Affirm Press, an indie publisher with a huge list, had been acquired by a really big fish, Simon & Schuster (S&S).

The corporate press releases were hardly Bruegelian. Pantera declared it shared with Hardie Grant "a strong alignment in ... missions and values - committed to fostering creativity, supporting authors, and publishing with purpose". The S&S presser was studded with optimistic quotes from CEOs and managing directors: everyone is thrilled, delighted, proud and excited.
Affirm Press' Martin Hughes (Image: Zennie/Private Media)
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Over the past decade or so, suspicion of corporate publishing acquisitions in Australia has been conditioned by major anti-trust proceedings in the United States, most recently in the Department of Justice's successful challenge to the merger of Penguin Random House (PRH) and Simon & Schuster.