AustLit

'The essay, if you haven’t noticed, is having a moment. It’s as if, in the age of the Anthropocene, as we face the end of the world as we know it, reality has finally become too real for make-believe. Delia Falconer’s Signs and Wonders is a collection of essays on subjects as diverse as gum trees and the decline of the paragraph, but its overriding imperative is to confront the reality of climate change. Exactly how it is to be confronted is a problem we all face. Falconer’s essays aim for a sophisticated mixture of reportage and philosophy, with healthy doses of outrage and despair.' (Introduction)

'I remember the nightmare. Of course I do. It did not want to be forgotten. It demanded space, and I gave it space. The absence of control, the fact I had no say in my narrative – that I was both bystander and helpless protagonist – was an implacable loss. I awoke; only my loss continued. It goes on still.' (Introduction)