Cirrus@Austlit

'A NOVEL I once read described a protagonist as the sort of woman who reads a cookbook in bed. I glance at my bedside and ponder the hardcovers sitting there. Hetty McKinnon. Anna Jones. Alison Roman. Are these not the great writers of our time? Steinbeck lies under a glass of water – the essential, reliable storyteller and coaster. But for practical, everyday beauty, for hope, for love, for mind-changing advice, it was always cookbooks.'  (Publication summary)

'‘THE APPLE DOESN’T fall far from the tree,’ said the woman from the abortion clinic on the other end of the phone. She repeated this proverb or idiom – with Turkish, Germanic and Russian origins – several times during our conversation.'  (Introduction)

'I START WRITING a poem when Ellen is still alive, and it is the first thing I write that I am proud of. It starts with a title (it is part of a sequence) or maybe a number, and then: I was afraid of Easter / stuffed with walnuts and dates / moulded then sugared / (why mould if you’re sugaring?). I forget the next part of the verse, which concludes: moulding and sugaring and Eastering Arabic cakes. Even approaching ninety and losing her sight, Ellen, my grandmother, would make hundreds of the cakes I am writing about, called ma’amoul (and I have subsequently learnt we really did Easter those cakes, cakes also made for Muslim festivals such as Eid and Jewish festivals such as Purim).' (Introduction)

'IN 2016, I  ATT ENDED a children’s literature conference in Wrocław, Poland, to deliver a paper to an international audience. On the first day, I heard the voices of two other Australians – our accent, to my ears, coming through flat and obvious from the auditorium seats. My paper was about lollies in children’s fiction, so of course I had brought with me bags of lollies to share with my audience and, hopefully, make my talk more appealing. Having spent four years writing about lollies, I figured my confectionery choices needed to be popular and tasty and say something about my central thesis. I’d taken ages in a Brisbane supermarket aisle, finally settling on bags of Allen’s Pineapples, Allen’s Strawberries & Creams and Allen’s Chicos: small, brown, chocolate-flavoured jubes that are shaped like babies. I was very nervous about my presentation, but I had no idea that it was this mundane act of choosing confectionery I should have worried about the most.' (Introduction)

'In the fiftieth anniversary year of the Whitlam government’s election victory, the legacies of its groundbreaking multicultural policies are still being felt – in courtrooms and boardrooms, in classrooms and living rooms. This final instalment in our series of intergenerational exchanges – a collaboration between Griffith Review and the Whitlam Institute – brings together cook, writer and television presenter Adam Liaw and Emeritus Professor of Sociology Andrew Jakubowicz to explore the many ways Whitlam helped us reimagine Australia.' (Introduction)