AustLit

'The use of medicinal plants or herbs originates from Indigenous knowledge systems which predate colonisation by thousands, or in the case of Aboriginal pharmacopeia, tens of thousands of years. Phytotherapy, a science-based medical practice first described by French physician Henri Leclerc in 1913, uses plant-derived medicines for prevention and treatment of ailments. Today, industrial pharma hacks plants’ intrinsic biotechnologies for maximum profit, producing pills and potions engineered to ease mental and physical maladies. What has been overlooked by the dollars that be (aka extractive capitalism) is the use of traditional plant medicines for diseases of spirit.' (Introduction)

'André Dao’s Anam is a sweeping epic composed over twelve years and spanning three generations: from Dao’s unnamed grandfather, a Catholic intellectual imprisoned for 3653 days in ­war-torn Vietnam; to his parents, whose application for refugee status was accepted by Australia, separating them from relatives resettled in France; to Dao’s rootless perambulations between all three countries plus Cambridge, where guilt and financial obligation bind him to the pursuit of a master’s in law. In the process, Anam presents questions around responsibility, inheritance and belonging as Dao searches for a home that feels like home, with partner and daughter at his side, and is instead confronted by a sense of placelessness, of time outside of time, and collected histories which refuse to yield redemptive truths.' (Introduction)

'I first encountered author Rose Hunter late in 2020 when I wrote about the decade I sold lingerie in strip clubs, hinting at but not claiming my own experience on the pole. Rose called me out on social media, furious at seeing ‘yet another conversation go by about sex workers, without a sex worker in it.’ She wrote, ‘My experience comes not from strip clubs but other areas of the sex work industry.’ I replied, ‘In truth, I have been on that side of the curtain, on your side and in various places in between.’ We had each outed ourselves on a platform that never forgets.' (Introduction)