Cirrus@Austlit

'The makers of the six-part Maralinga-themed series on ABC TV, Operation Buffalo, were careful to note at the start of each episode that the story was ‘historical fiction’, adding rather unhelpfully, ‘but some of the really bad history actually happened’. This disclaimer looks apologetic, intended to head off criticism. ‘Historical fiction’ certainly means that the story will be fictional, but it must also be historical. However, in this series there is effectively no meaningful history. An example of historical fiction is Judy Nunn’s novel Maralinga, which is historically accurate in its background, with a fictionalised story in the foreground. The story portrayed in Operation Buffalo has virtually nothing in common with the real events at Maralinga. The makers have taken two real names – Maralinga and Operation Buffalo – and riffed on them. They are of course entitled to do so, as a creative project. However, a question may legitimately be asked: why would they choose a tragic part of Australian history still within living memory and play games with it?' (Introduction)

'In the early twenty-first century, the word ‘suffragist’ is stuffy and obscure. There is more currency in ‘suffragettes’, especially the British women who resorted to civil disobedience in their mission of votes for women, years after their colonial sisters had succeeded peacefully. Clare Wright bridges and complexifies the difference between suffragists and suffragettes through the story of five Australian feminists who went on to be active in the United Kingdom: Dora Meeson Coates, Vida Goldstein, Nellie Martel, Muriel Matters and Dora Montefiore.' (Introduction)