{{Short description|1987 short story collection by Australian author John Sligo}} {{Use Australian English|date= April 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Infobox book| | name = Final Things | title_orig = | translator = | image = File:Final_Things.jpg | caption = | author = John Sligo | cover_artist = | country = Australia | language = English | series = | genre = Literary story collection | publisher = Penguin | release_date = 1987 | media_type = Print | pages = 337 pp. | isbn = 0140098801 | preceded_by = | followed_by = | awards = 1988 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, winner }}
'''''Final Things''''' is a 1987 story collection by the Australian/New Zealand author John Sligo, originally published in Australia by Penguin.<ref name="NLA">{{cite web |title=''Final Things'' by John Sligo (Penguin) |publisher=National Library of Australia |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1538409 |access-date=24 April 2025}}</ref>
The collection consists of 3 novellas, titled "A New Eden?", "Going Home", and "Burnham Camp".<ref name=Austlit>{{cite web|title= Austlit — ''Final Things'' by John Sligo |publisher= Austlit|url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C100235|access-date= 24 April 2025}}</ref>
It was the winner of the 1988 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.<ref name=NSWPLA>{{cite web|title= Award to book on Lawson's mother|publisher= Sydney Morning Herald, 13 September 1988, p4|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2526412308|access-date= 24 April 2025|id= {{ProQuest|2526412308}}}}</ref>
==Synopsis== Each of the novellas in this collection deals with the conflicts and consequences that arise in small, conservative New Zealand communities when outsiders move in.
==Critical reception== In ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', a reviewer commented about the stories that "All three are crafted with skill and a particular sensitivity to the undercurrents of everyday life."<ref>{{cite web|title="Still backwaters run deep in Sligo's world" |publisher= The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 1987, p108|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2526552796|access-date= 24 April 2025|id= {{ProQuest|2526552796}}}}</ref>
Mark Roberts, for ''The Age Monthly Review'' noted that "Sliogo has created an impressive, and for the most part, subtle triptych of the tensons which underlie contemporary New Zealand, and indeed Australian, society. Its major fault is that, at times, he feels the need to reinforce his message with signposts which, in the final instance, prove unnecessary and instrusive."<ref>{{cite web|title="Reviews in brief" |publisher= The Age Monthly Review, March 1988, pp21-22|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2521150228|access-date= 24 April 2025|id= {{ProQuest|2521150228}}}}</ref>
==See also== * 1987 in Australian literature
==Notes== * Dedication: For Annabel Ross / Hayat Mathews de Madariaga / Rose Creswell - a circle closed * Epigraph: Nel suo profondo vidi che s'interna, / legato con amore in un volume, / cio che per l'universo si squaderna. / La forma universal di questo nodo / credo ch'io vidi, perche piu-di largo / dicendo questo, mi sento ch'io godo Dante - Paradiso XXXIII * Author's note: The pages of experience are scattered, as Dante noted, yet joined into a coherence which creates a sense of trilogy. Characters come and go, interwoven in intention but not by plot.
==Awards==
* 1988 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, winner<ref name=NSWPLA />
==References== {{reflist}}
{{New South Wales Premier's Prize for Fiction}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Final Things}} Category:Australian short story collections Category:New Zealand short story collections Category:Christina Stead Prize for Fiction–winning works