AustLit

'My love of the world game and of world literature exist alongside one another. 1994 stands as a remarkable year when I both fell in love with USA ’94, watching Roberto Baggio sky the ball over the cross-bar to lose on penalties, and when I began reading novels on my own. In 1998, I watched France win while visiting family in Singapore, a true testament to adolescence, eating fried kway teow in front of the big screen, watching Frank Leboeuf and Lilian Thuram defend as though their lives depended on it, which they surely did. In that year, I remember with great fondness reading J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K as I began to find my way through contemporary writers who had won ‘Big Prizes’. By 2002, when South Korea and Japan hosted the World Cup, I had started making my way through the classics, from Kharms to Camus to Coleridge. And so, football and reading have always been about leisure to me.'  (Introduction)

'When you arrive in Singapore, chances are you will arrive at Changi Airport. You could come by the Causeway from Johor Bahru, but chances are that you will fly in, to a clean, quiet, gleaming, glistening, orderly terminal that looks more like a luxury mall than any other airport you have been to, especially LAX. The muzak will lull you, the travelators move you, and the janitors spray and wipe behind you. This is travel that is sanitised, suburban, temperature controlled by sensors and computers. After you pass customs, you will grade their service on a touchscreen and it will tell you to ‘have a nice day’. As you collect your bags, you will not be jostled, not even hurried let alone harangued, and you will begin to glimpse the concrete and green just out of reach, just in the humidity out there outside, all before you step aboard the MRT to take you anywhere in the city state you might desire, sweat-free. The money is made of plastic and there are stewards in case you need guidance, all while being welcomed into an idea of the present that has harbingers in the past and future. Welcome to Singapore.' (Introduction)

'Iris spoke to Robert Wood about return and renewal, balance and purpose, and how poetry matters across borders.' 

'Kim spoke to Robert Wood about belonging, belief, and reading.'

'Kaya spoke to Robert Wood about language, heritage, and routes.'

'A number of recent political events in Australia will have enduring and wide-ranging impacts on freedom of expression in this country. They include the denial of access to archival papers concerning the Whitlam dismissal, which Professor Jenny Hocking detailed in the April 2020 issue of ABR.' (Introduction)

'Suburbanism is a book of twelve essays on contemporary poetry. Robert Wood looks at New York, consumerism, lifestyle, birds, the Western Pilbara, diaspora, theorising, India, republics, malls, and supermarkets. He offers a fresh take on poetry as it relates to the suburbs, encouraging the reader to reflect on meaning in our own time, and to think about the field of New World Literature.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

 (Introduction)

Bella Li talked to Robert Wood about ekphrasis, assemblage and palimpsests.

'André Dao is a writer of fic­tion and non-fic­tion. He is the co-founder of Behind the Wire, and the deputy editor of New Philoso­pher.

'André talked to Robert about writing, the impossibility of apoliticism, Australia's history of dispossession, and creating Behind the Wire, an oral his­tory project doc­u­ment­ing people’s expe­ri­ence of immi­gra­tion deten­tion.'

Source: Abstract.

'Sumudu Samarawickrama is a poet from Werribee.

'Her work has appeared in Boston Review and Overland. Sumudu is part of Footscray Community Art Centre’s West Writer’s Group, and is currently completing a collection of surrealistic sci-fi.

'Sumudu talked to Robert about T. S. Eliot, FCAC's West Writers Group, and refraction in poetry.'

Source: Abstract.

'Eileen Chong is an acclaimed Sydney poet who was born in Singapore. Her books are Burning Rice, Peony, Painting Red Orchids, Another Language and Rainforest (coming soon). Her latest release is The Uncommon Feast, which focuses on food in poems, recipes and essays. She has been shortlisted for the Anne Elder Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, and twice for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

'Eileen will be launching The Uncommon Feast at Ashfield Town Hall on 7th February, alongside Asian-Australian writers Lachlan Brown, Wai Chim, Isabelle Li, and Sheila Ngoc Pham, as they read from and discuss their work including themes of culture, identity and food.

'Robert Wood talks to her about reading, identity and inspiration.'

Source: Abstract.

'Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar writer from the south coast of Western Australia who has lived in Melbourne for most of her life. Her debut novel, Terra Nullius, won a Black & Write Indigenous Writing Fellowship before being shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize. It went on to win several other awards. Small Beer Press will publish Terra Nullius in North America on September 11th. We caught up to talk about the book and Claire’s practice as a whole.'

Source: Magazine blurb.