AustLit

'Writers matter a little bit, but great stories told well matter hugely. There has never been a civilisation that has managed without fiction, and this is because the best fiction changes us in ways that we often only dimly understand. Biologists now suggest that our need to hear stories is hardwired. Listening to stories exercises our brains in valuable ways, teaching us how other people think, and feel. As Brian Boyd said in August 2009 on Radio National's The Book Show: 'I suggest that it develops especially our ability to process social information, which of course is crucial for human beings, but also that's a kind of individual value for every member of the audience, but also there is a kind of social-level value in that most stories tended to be pro-social, to promote co-operation rather than untrammelled competition.' (Introduction)