On Not Climbing Mountains
Australia

On Not Climbing Mountains

by Claire Thomas

Solitude & Exile Literary Fiction 2026

Summary

A woman arrives in Geneva, beginning a train journey through Switzerland, the country where her father was born. Seeking solitude and a temporary escape from the demands of ordinary life, she hopes to exist outside the usual rhythms of time. Yet as she travels through snowy landscapes, museums, and historic towns, she becomes immersed in the stories embedded in the places she encounters. She discovers traces of writers and artists including Mary Shelley, James Baldwin, Charlie Chaplin, and Patricia Highsmith, alongside the histories of political revolutionaries, scientific pioneers, and workers who carved tunnels through the Alps. Gradually, these fragments of art, history, and human experience begin to resonate with her own memories and grief. Blending travel writing, historical reflection, and literary fiction, On Not Climbing Mountains is a contemplative novel about the connections between landscape and memory, the fragility of the natural world, and the ways art allows us to encounter lives beyond our own.

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Country
Australia
Oceania
About the author
Claire Thomas
Claire Thomas

Claire Thomas is an Australian novelist and academic from Naarm (Melbourne). She holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne and has worked as a university lecturer, writing mentor, supervisor, and teacher. Her fiction explores human relationships, art, memory, and the subtle connections between individual lives and the wider world. Her debut novel, Fugitive Blue (2008), won the Dobbie Literary Award and was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her second novel, The Performance (2021), follows three women watching a theatrical performance as the world outside the theatre becomes increasingly uncertain. It was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2022. Thomas’s third novel, On Not Climbing Mountains (2026), draws on a residency at the Fondation Jan Michalski in Switzerland. Combining literary allusions, historical research, and reflections on grief, it demonstrates her interest in experimental narrative forms and the relationship between art and lived experience.

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Details
Published
2026
Author
Claire Thomas