y separately published work icon Australian Book Review periodical issue  
Issue Details: First known date: 2021... no. 433 July 2021 of Australian Book Review est. 1961 Australian Book Review
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Welcome to the July issue! This month we celebrate the awarding of the Calibre Prize to Theodore Ell, whose essay, ‘Façades of Lebanon’, provides a powerful eye-witness account of the Beirut explosion. The issue also explores current crises in humanitarianism with an aid worker’s frontline report from Syria and Maria O’Sullivan’s review of Alexander Betts’ book on international asylum seeker policies. And turning our attention to the racial cleavages in contemporary Australia are Paul Muldoon’s essay on the risks and rewards of Victoria’s Yoo-rrook Justice Commission and Mindy Gill’s review of an anthology of stories from Western Sydney. There are also reviews of new novels by Larissa Behrendt, Stephen Orr, and Laura Elizabeth Woollett, new poetry by Eunice Andrada, Judith Bishop, and Peter Goldsworthy – and much more!' (Publication summary)

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2021 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
‘Coming Together After a Struggle’ : A Process of Belated State-building, Kevin Bell , single work essay

'The Uluru Statement from the Heart was made at a historic assembly of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples at Uluru in 2017. It addresses the fundamental question of how Indigenous peoples want to be recognised in the Australian Constitution. The answer given is a First Nations ‘Voice’ to Federal Parliament protected by the Constitution, and a subsequent process of agreement-making and truth-telling. This process should be overseen by a Makarrata Commission, from the Yolngu word meaning ‘the coming together after a struggle’. Inspired by the values enshrined in the Statement, Victoria has established such a process through the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission. ‘Yoo-rrook’ is a Wemba Wemba/Wamba Wamba word meaning ‘truth’.' (Introduction)

(p. 11-12)
Preaching to the Converted : Burdening Literature with Moral Instruction, Mindy Gill , single work review
— Review of Racism : Stories on Fear, Hate and Bigotry 2021 anthology life story ;

'Sweatshop, based in Western Sydney, is a writing and literacy organisation that mentors emerging writers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Racism, their ninth anthology, brings together all thirty-nine writers involved in their three programs – the Sweatshop Writers Group, Sweatshop Women Collective, and Sweatshop Schools Initiative. The section titled ‘Micro Aggressive Fiction’ houses the school students’ work, and the remainder of the anthology includes poetry, fiction, and essays (it can be difficult to distinguish between fiction and non-fiction; the works are not labelled by genre) by emerging writers, though a short story by award-winning poet Sara M. Saleh also appears. This anthology contributes to the recent crop of anti-racist texts aimed at white audiences. Editors Winnie Dunn, Stephen Pham, and Phoebe Grainer write that Racism is for Australians ‘who require an honest reflection of racism that is present and prevalent’. However, unlike other such texts – generally non-fiction works that directly address the issue at hand – anti-racist fiction can have its limitations, frequently risking didacticism.'  (Introduction)

(p. 15-16)
Another Country : A Bravura Act of Biographical Recovery, Frank Bongiorno , single work review
— Review of The Brilliant Boy : Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent Gideon Haigh , 2021 single work biography ;
'To write of Herbert Vere Evatt (1894–1965) is to venture into a land where opinions are rarely held tentatively. While many aspects of his career have been controversial, his actions during the famous Split of 1955 arouse the most passionate criticism. Evatt is attacked, not only on the political right but frequently from within the Labor Party itself, for his alleged role in causing the catastrophic rupture that kept Labor out of office until 1972.' (Introduction)
(p. 17-18)
The Yieldi"When I read there were 170 women", Eunice Andrada , single work poetry (p. 30)
Shaggy God Storyi"Dear god-herd, golden god-horde, Lord", Peter Goldsworthy , single work poetry (p. 34)
An Infinite Void : The Great Weight of History and Culture, Debra Adelaide , single work review
— Review of After Story Larissa Behrendt , 2021 single work novel ;
'In the latter half of this novel, one of its protagonists is viewing a collection of butterflies at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This forms part of Jasmine’s holiday with her mother, Della, a tour of famous literary and other notable cultural sites in the United Kingdom. By this stage they have visited Stratford-upon-Avon, Brontë country in Haworth, and Jane Austen’s Bath and Southampton, and have been duly impressed or, in Della’s case, underwhelmed. But now Jasmine can only feel sadness: ‘We take the life of a living thing, hold it to display, because we feel entitled to the knowledge, entitled to the owning, the possessing.’' (Introduction)
(p. 36)
The Secrets of Ethel : Reimagining the Catalyst of the Literary Hoax, Susan Sheridan , single work review
— Review of Sincerely, Ethel Malley Stephen Orr , 2021 single work novel ;

'‘Ern Malley’ – a great literary creation and the occasion of a famous literary hoax – has continued to attract fascinated attention ever since he burst upon the Australian poetry scene more than seventy years ago. But his sister Ethel has attracted little notice, she who set off the whole saga by writing to Max Harris, the young editor of Angry Penguins, asking whether the poems left by her late brother were any good, and signing herself ‘sincerely, Ethel Malley’.' (Introduction)

(p. 37)
‘Pretty’s What Got You Here’ : Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s Second Novel, Jay Daniel Thompson , single work review
— Review of The Newcomer Laura Woollett , 2021 single work novel ;

'The title character of Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s second novel, The Newcomer, is Paulina Novak, who has arrived on Fairfolk Island after leaving a finance career in Sydney. If she is wanting to make a new start, then she’s mistaken; Paulina’s life seems perpetually sullied by alcoholism, an eating disorder, and a tendency to fall for callous men. Acquaintances say that her head is ‘messy’. Paulina herself remarks: ‘My whole life’s a fuck-up.’'  (Introduction)

(p. 38)
Possibilities of Resistance : Three Narratives of Women’s Experience, Susan Midalia , single work review
— Review of Spring Clean for the Peach Queen Sasha Wasley , 2021 single work novel ; All That I Remember about Dean Cola Tania Chandler , 2021 single work novel ; Catch Us the Foxes Nicola West , 2021 single work novel ;

'Three recent novels by Australian women deal with current and increasingly urgent political questions about female identity and embodiment. They each use the conventions of popular realist fiction to provoke thought about the causes of female disempowerment and the struggle for self-determination. Coincidentally, they are also set, or partially set, in Australian country towns, although their locations are markedly different, and their plots culminate in the revelation of disturbing secrets.' (Introduction)

(p. 41-42)
Facades of Lebanon, Theodore Ell , single work

'As the March and April evenings grew hotter, the streets of East Beirut were as empty as our calendars. The grumble of traffic had disappeared. Without the usual smokescreen, the nearby mountains and coastline were visible for weeks. Parks are scarce in Beirut and gardens are private, but this spring, vines and bougainvillea were clambering over the high walls and no one was trimming them. It was possible to take solitary walks and hear birdsong.' (Introduction)

(p. 44-48)
Quantum of Lighti"Dusk when the people in the trees", David Mason , poetry (p. 51)
Merit in Quietude : Two New Poetry Collections by Eileen Chong and Thuy On, James Jiang , single work review
— Review of A Thousand Crimson Blooms Eileen Chong , 2021 selected work poetry ; Turbulence Thuy On , 2020 selected work poetry ;
(p. 53-54)
‘Fragments of Many Stars’ Elfie Shiosaki’s Stellar Collection, Jeanine Leane , single work review
— Review of Homecoming Elfie Shiosaki , 2021 selected work poetry prose ;

'Noongar and Yawuru poet and academic Elfie Shiosaki writes in the introduction to her new poetry collection, Homecoming, that it is the story of four generations of Noongar women of which she is the sixth. The poems are ‘fragments of many stars’ in her ‘grandmothers’ constellations’. Shiosaki ‘tracks her grandmothers’ stars’ to find her ‘bidi home’. The introduction reads as a beautifully crafted prose poem that contextualises the works that follow.'  (Introduction)

(p. 55)
Fully Documented Lives : A Daughter’s Fond and Intelligent Book on Her Literary Parents, Susan Lever , single work review
— Review of A Paper Inheritance : The Passionate Literary Lives of Leslie Rees and Coralie Clarke Rees Dymphna Rees Peterson , 2021 single work biography ;

'Coralie Clarke Rees and Leslie Rees are not remembered among the glamour couples of twentieth-century Australian literary life. Unlike George Johnston and Charmian Clift, Vance and Nettie Palmer, or their friends Darcy Niland and Ruth Park, neither of them wrote novels and they both spread their work across a range of genres. Critics, journalists, travel writers, children’s writers, playwrights, they devoted themselves to supporting the broad artistic culture of Australia rather than claiming its attention. Their lives were spent in juggling their literary interests with the need to make a living at a time when Australian society was even less supportive of writers than it is now. They made compromises to suburban life and the need to care for their two daughters, without ever abandoning their determination to live by the pen.' (Introduction) 

(p. 56-57)
Years of Wine and Rage : Much Candour, Less Reflection, Jacqueline Kent , single work review
— Review of The Most I Could Be Dale Kent , 2021 single work autobiography ;

'There’s a Judy Horacek cartoon in which a woman tells a friend that she once intended to be the perfect wife, a domestic goddess. When the friend asks, ‘So what happened?’, the woman replies, ‘They taught me to read.’' (Introduction)

(p. 61)
Open Page : An Interview with Larissa Behrendt, single work interview (p. 62)
A Life of Wonder : A Revered Actor Who Bucked Trends, Travis Akbar , single work review
— Review of My Name Is Gulpilil 2021 single work film/TV ;

'In 1955, Charles Chauvel’s Jedda – the first colour feature film made in Australia – was released. At the January première in Darwin, the two Aboriginal cast members, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks and Robert Tudawali, were the only ones permitted to sit with the white people. (Later that year it was released in the United Kingdom as Jedda the Uncivilized.)' (Introduction)

(p. 64)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 16 Apr 2024 09:35:50
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