AustLit

'Literature stands on the front lines, wherever noble human impulse confronts the void. Mass extinction of species, collapse of earth’s vital ecosystems, devastating environmental degradation, systemic impoverishment, and the fraying of hard-won systems of geopolitical cooperation all hang heavy on us in this generation. One often underappreciated aspect of this avalanche triggered by human overreach is the accelerating loss of our cultural diversity—of the peoples, traditions, and languages of our world.' (Introduction)

'Before opening Nganajungu Yagu, readers see the image of an old-fashioned suitcase over which the author’s name and book’s title are superimposed. The title, from the Wajarri language, means “my mother,” the author tells us. What are the implications: Is Nganajungu Yagu to be a book of tragic travelogues undertaken in mostly lost indigenous tongues, Charmaine Papertalk Green versing and traversing brutally colonized lands? Or does the code-mixing in this book (between Wajarri, Badimaya, and English) imply language as a portmanteau, comporting disempowerment for indigenous language users in epistemically violent colonial contexts? Or is this writer working interlinguistically against inheritances bequeathing disconnection in a monoculturally imperialized place, as if to send an epistle issuing a set of instructions on the means by which Aboriginal Australians might fight back against a version of “Australia” that historically and systematically displaces and dispossesses indigenous peoples?' (Introduction)

'Shokoofeh Azar's The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is an astoundingly imaginative work of fiction with deep roots in Persian culture. The novel depicts the life of a family forced to flee Tehran for the countryside after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The narrator of the novel is a thirteen-year-old ghost named Bahar, who was killed in a particularly horrifying way. Bahar is the youngest of three siblings: Sohrab, her older brother, is arrested, tortured, and eventually executed; and Beeta, an older sister, is transformed into a mermaid. Her mother, who attains enlightenment after spending three days and three nights atop a greengage tree overlooking the village, struggles to make sense of the events that have disrupted their lives. Bahar’s father is perhaps the most melancholic of the family. He is the quietest, most introspective of the five and is also the last to survive.'  (Introduction)