Cirrus@Austlit

The tale of one man’s quest to find his biological mother captured all the qualities of the movies — and of life itself, writes Philippa Hawker.

'In his first interview since the tragic death of his son, Nick Cave speaks to Iain Shedden about loss and the transformative power of music.'

'For months we have been hearing about Lion, a new Australian film that wowed North American audiences in Toronto last September (but was withheld from Venice, where it also might have appealed to Europeans) and that has gained, as the result of expert publicity and occasional sneak previews, favourable word of mouth.' (Introduction)

'The forgotten Australian author Ion Idriess was a bushman and writer who knew there was more to life than we dream of, writes Nicolas Rothwell.'

'Despite his popularity and commercial success, Ion Idriess never found acceptance among the critical and literary intelligentsia, either in his time or in our day. To a striking degree, he has been written out of history, despite a resurgence of interest in many of his chosen themes.' (Introduction)

'Just a tiny tweak of the carbon atom and it all could have been so different. Geraint Lewis’s take on that age-old question — why are we here? — has an elemental specificity about it. Other writers may riff on the cosmic good fortune of living on a planet in its sun’s Goldilocks zone, where water can exist in liquid form and with a magnetic field to shield us from space radiation. Lewis zeros in on some even more fundamental flukes in his essay You Wouldn’t Bet on It: The Cosmic Crapshoot of Life.' (Introduction)