The world changed on 11 September 2001, but did the Australian novel? After 9/11, fundamentalism provoked a significant reaction in the West. The often marginalised topic of religion—particularly as it pertained to Islamic beliefs— was suddenly on the front pew. Moderate Muslim voices were sought, fundamentalist religion was analysed (including the Bush administration’s connections to fundamentalist Christianity and end-time prophecies), and God, long presumed dead (or at least sleeping soundly), became a factor in global conflict.

God, or at least those who believed in a particular version of him, had gone too far. In the West, nonfiction scribes were the loudest and most publicised crusaders. ‘New atheists’ such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, unwilling to enter a dialogue with religious moderates, impressed upon us the need to stamp out God altogether. As expected, theist authors Karen Armstrong, Charles Taylor, Francis S. Collins and others weighed in with counter-theses. For the past eight years, the war on terror has run parallel with a Western war of words about God’s place in global culture.