Julian Davies (born 23 June 1954) is an Australian author, co-founder and publisher of the non-profit press Finlay Lloyd, and Executive Officer of the Consensus Education Foundation.
Best known as a novelist, Davies has also written stories and non-fiction, made ceramics and paintings, and established the non-profit art gallery The Left Hand.
Helen Elliott wrote in the Melbourne Herald: ‘The prose is spare and clean, the assurance is enviable, the tone measured, infallible...’ and Rob Johnson wrote in the Adelaide Advertiser: ‘...a tour de force... a strikingly accomplished performance.’ Davies’ novels are considerably varied in their stylistic approach and thematic concerns but share an overall interest in the relationship between sensual experience and how we conduct our lives, between our passions and our ethical concerns.
‘The point for Davies, in this beautifully crafted and exquisitely controlled novel (The Beholder) is that... it is only through affection and engagement that we can ever truly live nobly.’ (James Bradley, Sydney Morning Herald).
Davies' concern for the power of language has developed from the more straightforward clarity of his first novel, Revival House ‘...tremendously impressive... the writing is controlled and elegant,’ (Fiona Capp wrote in Australian Book Review), to become more expressive.
Late in 2005, frustrated by the increasing commercialism of publishing, Davies co-founded Finlay Lloyd with Phil Day (artist), Ingeborg Hansen and Robin Wallace-Crabbe.
Dorothy Johnston, Sydney Morning Herald, wrote that: "Crow Mellow is a sophisticated hybrid, a marriage of words and visual images, and it is this which most clearly sets the book apart ... Davies plus Day is a new creature entirely.