AustLit
Latest Issues
Contents
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The Spectre of Tribalism Reflections on Israel, AIDS and Identity Politics,
single work
essay
'Last year I turned eighty. Vacillating between denial and celebration, I decided, with some trepidation, on the latter. It was thirty years since I had last had a big birthday party: this one needed to be special. I consoled myself that, old as I am, I am still younger than the president of the United States, Mick Jagger, and the pope.' (Introduction)
- A House—I Will Not Painti"Emily could live—did live. Emily could die—did die.", single work poetry (p. 29)
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The Vanished Woman : Reversing the Silencing about Women and War,
single work
review
— Review of Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend : Australian Women’s War Fictions 2023 multi chapter work criticism ;'Near the beginning of Wifedom, Anna Funder describes a disappearing trick whereby a male magician conjures away his female assistant. She uses this as a trope for history’s tendency to make women vanish: ‘Where has she gone?’ Funder asks. This invisibility is especially the case in relation to women and war. Not only are women’s roles in wars downplayed or ignored, but women’s writing on war is seldom regarded as ‘war literature’. As Donna Coates, the author of this newly published study, Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend: Australian women’s war fictions, notes, the bookshelves at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra contain numerous books ‘by and about men at war’ and very few examples of women’s war writing.'(Introduction)
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‘Why Are We Here?’ : Skirting the Philosophical Coetzee,
single work
review
— Review of The Bloomsbury Handbook to J. M. Coetzee 2023 anthology criticism ; (p. 31-32) -
Fiction’s Otherness : Conjuring Joseph Conrad,
single work
review
— Review of One Another 2024 single work novel ;'It is 1992, the year of the Mabo judgment, and Helen, a scholarship student from Tasmania, is undertaking a PhD at Cambridge, writing a thesis titled ‘Cryptomodernism and Empire’. It is on Joseph Conrad, a writer about whom her peers are contemptuous. Helen is dealing with a forlorn and dismissive supervisor, and the disappointment that her experience abroad was not what she had expected. Her ‘fantasy of vigorous literary talk, multisyllabic and theoretical, was soon defeated’.' (Introduction)
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Transfiguring the World : Sharlene Allsopp’s Impressive Début,
single work
review
— Review of The Great Undoing 2024 single work novel ;'Over the past two decades, novelists such as Alexis Wright, Kim Scott, and Ellen van Neerven have produced a body of work that not only unflinchingly explores the reality of Indigenous experience, but in many cases revisions the boundaries of the novel altogether, dissolving the strictures of conventional realism to give shape to Indigenous notions of temporality and relationship with Country.'(Introduction)
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How Not to Drown : An Intricate Puzzle of a Book,
single work
review
— Review of My Brilliant Sister 2024 single work novel ;'Ida, a secondary school teacher in Melbourne with a four-year-old daughter, Aster, in childcare, lives in a post-Covid world of masks, mindfulness apps, remote learning, and video calls. Recently relocated from New Zealand when her partner, a lecturer in Cultural Studies, is offered a more prestigious job at an Australian university, she has relinquished the possibility of continuing her own academic career. He seems unwilling to share household tasks or help to tend to their child, despite the fact that they are both working, and distances himself by immersing himself in his study and going on long runs. In the opening passage, we are presented with Ida’s childhood memory of being on a beach, where she pretends that she knows how to swim – or rather, that she has learned ‘how not to drown’ – which now seems an apt metaphor for her marriage.' (Introduction)
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Personal and Political : Yumna Kassab’s ‘Constellation Novel’,
single work
review
— Review of Politica 2024 single work novel ;'‘The personal is political’ is an axiom that has become ubiquitous. Normally used within the context of feminist activism, in Yumna Kassab’s latest novel – for which it serves as the epigraph – it is a reminder of the human sacrifice of war and how every part of a civilian’s life reflects its surroundings.' (Introduction)
- Portfolioi"Real estate: that’s all Postumia can think about,", single work poetry (p. 43)
- Syllabusi"On his deathbed – faux deathbed really,", single work poetry (p. 43)
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Open Page with Andrew Leigh,
single work
interview
'Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. Prior to being elected in 2010, Andrew was a professor of economics at the Australian National University. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard. His books include Battlers and Billionaires: The story of inequality in Australia (2013), Randomistas: How radical researchers changed our world (2018), and The Shortest History of Economics (2024). Andrew is a keen triathlete and marathon runner, and hosts a podcast called The Good Life: Andrew Leigh in Conversation, about living a happier, healthier, and more ethical life.' (Introduction)
- Arrowi"Mud is loath to relinquish anything –", single work poetry (p. 45)
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Ghosts and Machines : A Collection Haunted by Loss and Mutability,
single work
review
— Review of Ghosts of Paradise 2023 selected work poetry ;With a title like Ghosts of Paradise, it is no surprise that Stephen Edgar’s latest poetry collection is haunted by loss, mutability, and mortality – the great traditional themes of elegiac poetry. But Edgar’s poetry has long, if not always, been characteristically elegiac. In this new collection, Edgar’s first since winning the Prime Minister’s Award for poetry in 2021 (and his first for Pitt Street Poetry), the poems are haunted by the poet’s late parents, late fellow poets (especially W.B. Yeats, but also the Australian poet Robert Adamson, for whom there is an elegy), and ancient poetic forms, such as the sonnet. The collection also includes meditations on ageing, corpses, and photographs (including Roland Barthes’ ‘theory / That every photo is a memento mori’).' (Introduction)
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‘The Mind Unzips’ : Two Singular Poetry Collections,
single work
review
— Review of Mishearing 2023 selected work poetry ; Afterlife 2023 selected work poetry ; (p. 47-48) - Critic of the Month with Frank Bongiorno, single work interview (p. 49)
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Backstage with Anna Goldsworthy,
single work
interview
'Professor Anna Goldsworthy is Director of the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide, and an award-winning pianist, writer, and festival director. She co-founded the Seraphim Trio in 1995. Her books include the memoir Piano Lessons (2009) and a novel, Melting Moments (2020). Anna has directed numerous music festivals, and in April 2024, will direct the Music and Mountains Festival in Queenstown, New Zealand.' (Introduction)