Cirrus@Austlit

'Carmen Callil was born in Melbourne in 1938 and since 1960 has lived in England where in 1973 she founded Virago, a vigorous feminist publishing house. The original Latin meaning of ‘‘virago’’ was ­‘‘female warrior’’, but the term has acquired strong overtones of ‘‘angry witch’’.' (Introduction)

'The insistence by so many Australians that we don’t have a society segregated by class has always been blatantly untrue, and the pandemic has only underlined this. Two new titles from small independent Melbourne press Transit Lounge gaze upon Aus­tralia’s social strata.' Introduction)