AustLit

'In Michele Lee’s new play Single Ladies, the lives of three women collide in a frenetically paced comedy. By Tali Lavi.'

'Eddie Jaku looks out benevolently from his memoir’s cover, signs of living etched across his face. The dapper centenarian displays another mark, one distinctly at odds with his beatific expression and the title’s claim: the tattoo on his forearm from Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Less discernible is the badge affixed to his lapel bearing the Hebrew word zachor; ‘remember’. The Happiest Man on Earth blazes with the pursuit of memory, of bearing witness, but it is also determinedly oriented towards the future, its dedication inscribed to ‘future generations’.' (Introduction)

‘“I must remember accurately,” I told myself, “remember everything accurately so that when he is gone I can re-create the father who created me.”’ This is Philip Roth exhorting himself while witnessing his declining father bathe in Patrimony: A true story (1991), a memoir that opens when Herman Roth is diagnosed with a brain tumour. The book, tender but also brutal, slips between the present and the past. Philip Roth, after all, is the writer. The matter of accuracy feels particularly perilous when the subject is the writer’s parent, if the intention is not to write a hagiography. It takes a particular kind of courage to countenance a parent’s failings when not motivated by revenge.' (Introduction)

'In the beginning there is the sound of deep breathing and heartbeat. Woman, the electric Jennifer Vuletic, lies writhing on a rock, splayed as if for sacrifice. Is she in a state of anguish or ecstasy? My Dearworthy Darling ushers us into a space fraught with uncertainty, the kind where questions beget more questions. Fortunately, we are in the deft hands of THE RABBLE, a feminist theatre collective that rejects theatre as a comfortable form of entertainment. The play is an amalgam of the ‘holy theatre’ that Peter Brook wrote of in his ground-breaking work The Empty Space (1968) and the deconstructing feminist gaze of Caryl Churchill.'  (Introduction)

'Early on in this book, the fictional Lale Sokolov, based on the real man of that name who survived Auschwitz and its horrors to eventually live in suburban Melbourne, has his arm tattooed. Aghast, he laments, ‘How can someone do this to another human being?’ He wonders if, ‘for the rest of his life, be it short or long, he will be defined by this moment, this irregular number: 32407’. The story that follows explores this first theme by exposing the nadir of human depravity as represented by the Holocaust’s perpetrators, and refutes his second thought. Although given the loathsome function of the tattooist, Lale lives in opposition to the Nazi fantasy that Jews, Gypsies, and others could thus be reduced to their withered husks; his gestures of kindness and sacrifice flow endlessly towards his fellow inmates and his lifelong love, Gita.' (Introduction)

'Fairy tales with their tales of morality and otherworldliness are a relatively benign way of facing our fears, even as they might haunt our nightmares. But is it enough to reproduce them again and again? New fairy tale picture books capture our attention because they employ captivating language or a Jane Ray or Lauren Child, some of the best contemporary retellers do, the messages are changed ever so slightly so that those communicated don't merely reiterate ones that seem out of kilter with messages we might want to instil in our children; hence Hansel and Gretel might still be on their way to the oven but princesses are not lauded merely for their appearance.' (Introduction)

'Picture books for young readers often choose rhyme over the cadences and openness of poetry. Pea Pod Lullaby, a story about seeking refuge, belongs to the realm of poetry and incantation. A mother, child, baby and dog escape to the seas on a perilous passage and, along the way, a seemingly threatening creature seeks refuge with these castaways.' (Introduction)

'Even young children of the exceptionally timid variety will find it difficult to be scared by the monsters in this book: the furry Gobbeldygook, whose jagged teeth are forever affixed in a disarming smile and who is initially spooked by the appearance of the other, a hybrid of Kermit the Frog and a gangly alien.' (Introduction)