AustLit

'It’s a pity we don’t have a happier story to tell in our summer issue and at the end of various lockdowns.  

'In fact, there has only been a strengthening of the dire situation in which the world, and Australia, has come to rest at the end of 2021. Much is being revealed of a more divided society and body politic than we might have thought. COVID continues to stalk both the Global North and Global South. War is on the agenda locally, as our corrupted government vests Country, and tries to orient our soul (such as it is), to the needs of US imperium. China is battening down the hatches ever more firmly, with unforeseen consequences economically for a globally integrated world (whose material exchanges and supply chains have already faltered in the period of COVID). Global warming remains either an aside in national performances of climate chauvinism or, as for most of the world, merely a technical problem to be solved by clever humans. And all of this in a growth-driven and technology-obsessed culture generally, whose imperatives and fancies are at work in every sphere of personal identity and collective life.' (Alison Caddick : Editorial introduction)