y separately published work icon Australian Book Review periodical issue  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... no. 458 October 2023 of Australian Book Review est. 1961 Australian Book Review
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Two weeks out from the historic Voice referendum, ABR’s Indigenous issue features our strongest-ever representation of First Nations reviewers, commentators, interviews, poems, books, and themes. Lynette Russell and Melissa Castan discuss the mechanics of the Voice, Alexis Wright describes Indigenous time as interlinked and unresolved, members of the Indigenous Australian Dictionary of Biography describe their project, and Zoë Laidlaw explores university Indigenous histories. We interview Anita Heiss, Jeanine Leane reviews Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie, Mark McKenna grapples with David Marr’s Killing for Country, Tom Wright weighs a biography of Donald Horne, and Declan Fry endorses Indigenous economics. Reviews from Claire G. Coleman, Julie Janson, and Jacinta Walsh lead a stellar First Nations line-up.' (Publication summary)

 

Notes

  • Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes: 

    Ancient sovereignty shining through by Melissa Castan and Lynette Russell 

    What got us there : A skilful explanation of change by Bronwyn Fredericks 

    ‘You take um up my land for me’ An Indigenous history of the University of Melbourne by Zoe Laidlaw 

    Cooperative economics : A new chapter for AIME by Declan Fry 

    At the Hotel Metropole : Stalin’s manipulation of the media by Sheila Fitzpatrick 

    The state as sleeping partner : Imperialism via the joint-stock company by Clinton Fernandes

    Double daylight : The horrors of British atomic testing by Elizabeth Tynan 

    Girl and Sylvia  : An invigorating work of many faces by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

    The perils of nostalgia : Helen MacDonald’s surprising new book by J.R. Burgmann 

    Capturing the mood : A new addition to a tricky genre by Zora Simic

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2023 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Sovereign Time of Country : Living in the Pulse and Heartbeat of an Infinite Clock, Alexis Wright , single work essay

'I have often spoken of trying to write in some meaningful way about what it means to belong to all times in this place that we call our traditional homeland. Aboriginal people know that we have been here since time immemorial. We have never lost track of the wisdom and knowledge that generations of our ancestors had developed over thousands of years about the powerful nature of this country. It was their knowledge that ensured the survival of our culture to this day.' (Introduction)

(p. 12-13)
Follow the Sheep : An Unflinching Contribution to Frontier History, Mark McKenna , single work review
— Review of Killing for Country : A Family Story David Marr , 2023 multi chapter work criticism ;
'Forty-three years ago, David Marr – journalist, broadcaster, biographer, political commentator, and public intellectual – published his first book, a sharp, memorable biography of Garfield Barwick, former Liberal attorney-general and chief justice of the High Court. After the appearance of Patrick White: A life in 1991, long considered one of the best biographies ever written in Australia, he might well have followed the more predictable path of the serial biographer. But Marr’s trajectory has proved to be anything but predictable.' (Introduction) 
(p. 14, 16)
Draw Closer : A Road We Can All Travel, Sandra R. Phillips , single work review
— Review of The Welcome to Country Handbook : A Guide to Indigenous Australia Marcia Langton , 2023 multi chapter work criticism ;

'Walking into Sydney’s iconic Abbey’s Bookshop, I noticed a prominent display of books devoted to the campaign to recognise Indigenous peoples in the Australian Constitution. Some of the books were new to me; all were written with great care and doubtless published for the moment. Marcia Langton’s The Welcome to Country Handbook: A guide to Indigenous Australia wasn’t among them, perhaps because of its newness, perhaps because it transcends the moment, its title signposting a broader remit. Langton’s wide-ranging knowledge, irrepressible curiosity, and longstanding engagement with culture, education, and politics bring a breadth to the work that few others could offer.' (Introduction)

(p. 19-20)
The Dreaming : A Vessel to Hold Past, Present, Future, Leonie Stevens , single work review
— Review of Everywhen : Australia and the Language of Deep History 2023 anthology criticism ;

'It can take an enormous intellectual effort for non-Indigenous people (such as this reviewer) to grasp Indigenous concepts of time. This is partially due to what Aileen Moreton-Robinson has described as the incommensurability of Indigenous and Western epistemological approaches. In settler-colonial terms, land is a resource to be appropriated, surveyed, and exploited. Temporality is generally used to situate the colonisation event, the before and after, from a perspective where time is linear and forward-looking. By contrast, in Indigenous cosmological approaches, land, culture, and time are co-dependent and in perpetual conversation. Country and time are indivisible.' (Introduction)

(p. 20-21)
Art and Identity : Conflicted Times at the ABC, Philip Morrissey , single work review
— Review of Close to the Subject : Selected Works Daniel Browning , 2023 selected work essay interview ;

'The vibrant state of Aboriginal intellectual life is immediately evident upon reading Melissa Lucashenko’s foreword and Daniel Browning’s introduction to his Close to the Subject: Selected works. Lucashenko combines insight with an engaging, colloquial style; Browning, without apology or artifice, weighs up the successes, failures, and resentments of almost three decades as a journalist.' (Introduction)

(p. 22)
Go Roguei"I latch onto the mantra", Kirli Saunders , single work poetry (p. 23)
Who’s Your Mob? : An Indigenous Australian Dictionary of Biography, Shino Konishi , Julie Andrews , Odette Best , Brenda Croft , Stephen Kinnane , Greg Lehman , John Whop , single work essay

'In his 1968 Boyer Lectures, After the Dreaming, anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner lamented that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples had been omitted from narratives of the nation’s past. Contending that this omission was ‘a structural matter’, he likened Australian history to ‘a view from a window which has been carefully placed to exclude a whole quadrant of the landscape’. He proposed that the kinds of stories which could bring Indigenous history into view for Australian readers would focus on the lives of individuals.' (Introduction)

(p. 24-26)
An Interview with Anita Heiss, single work interview

'Anita Heiss is the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary, and travel articles. She is a Lifetime Ambassador of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and a proud member of the Wiradyuri nation of central New South Wales.' (Introduction)

(p. 30)
Mother and Daughter : Lived Aboriginal History, Julie Andrews , single work review
— Review of Auntie Rita Rita Cynthia Huggins , Jackie Huggins , 1994 single work biography ;

'Family photographs add so much to Aboriginal autobiography. Aboriginal people will scan them to see who they know and what the buildings, clothes, and area looked like then. Photographs are an open invitation to connect with your people, no matter where they are from.' (Introduction)

(p. 31-32)
‘Treasure Every Word’ : The Linguistics of Australian Indigenous Languages, Thomas Poulton , single work review
— Review of The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages 2022 anthology criticism ;

'Kado Muir – a Ngalia man – will never be able to have another conversation in his mother tongue. He tells the story of witnessing each of his elders dying and, in the process, his language. Successively, he had fewer and fewer people to communicate with. In the case of his language community, younger contemporaries shifted to English as the language exerted its colonial power – until at last Kado Muir became the last speaker of Ngalia.' (Introduction)

(p. 32-33)
Minyerri (Now Marked for Fracking)i"Old Pelican sits by the billabong, he scratches his white hair sighing.", Julie Janson , single work poetry (p. 33)
Songlines in Action : Tracing Five Generations, Jacinta Walsh , single work review
— Review of Reaching Through Time : Finding My Family's Stories Shauna Bostock , 2023 single work autobiography ;

'Reaching Through Time: Finding my family’s stories is the epitome of Indigenous family life writing. Predominantly set in New South Wales, on the east coast of Australia, Reaching Through Time is a journey through more than 200 years of Australian history, from early invasion and colonisation to the present day, through the lens of Indigenous family lived experience. This collection of life stories – skilfully located in the archives, family memory, and secondary sources – traces five generations of the authors’ family. Reaching Through Time is a rich, engaging contribution to Australian history. Bostock is writing against Australian historiography, which has excluded the voices of Indigenous families. As Shauna Bostock says: ‘This book is written for people who want to know our history from an Aboriginal perspective.’' (Introduction)

(p. 34-35)
Ripples of Impact : Two New Books on the Tiwi Islands, John Bradley , single work review
— Review of Tiwi Story : Turning History Downside Up 2023 anthology essay ; The Old Songs Are Always New : Singing Traditions of the Tiwi Islands Genevieve Campbell , 2023 multi chapter work criticism lyric/song ;

'Just to north of Darwin is the country of the Tiwi people, spread over Bathurst and Melville Islands. These two new books give voice to Tiwi oral traditions and to the power and resonance within that tradition of orality that encompasses song, narrative, and the ways in which they sustain family and relationships to ancestors and to kin.' (Introduction)

(p. 35-36)
The Enigmatic Howitt : A Troubling, Intriguing Colonial Type, Jason M. Gibson , single work review
— Review of Line of Blood : The Truth of Alfred Howitt Craig Horne , 2023 single work biography ;
'Alfred William Howitt is a well-known yet enigmatic figure in Australian colonial history. Born in England in 1830 and raised by literary and politically active parents, Howitt grew up amid an erudite and socially progressive milieu. With his father and brother, he arrived in Australia in 1852, hoping to ‘make it big’ on the Victorian gold fields. Enthralled by the natural environment and the liberties afforded to a gentleman bushman in the colony, Howitt decided to stay on while his family returned to London.' 

(Introduction)

(p. 36-37)
Prop, Stage, Star : Ode to Country, Bebe Backhouse , single work review
— Review of The Body Country Susie Anderson , 2023 selected work poetry ;

'There is no denying the power of poetry as thoughtful story-telling, a form of expression free from rules, conventions. It allows a safe environment for experimentation, free from the confines of traditionalism. Portraits in words, detailing the ride of life and thoughts of the mind are painted onto the canvas, where the placement of verses on a page can matter as much as the choices of words themselves.' (Introduction)

(p. 40)
An Interview with Yasmin Smith, single work interview

'Yasmin Smith is an editor, writer and poet of South Sea Islander, Kabi Kabi, Northern Cheyenne, and English heritage. She has worked across literary fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, and poetry, with a focus on supporting First Nations creatives and their stories. She is currently an editor at University of Queensland Press, where her work includes overseeing its groundbreaking First Nations Classics series.' (Publication summary)

(p. 41)
Siren Song : Two New Indigenous Poetry Collections, Julie Janson , single work review
— Review of She Is the Earth Ali Cobby Eckermann , 2023 single work novella ; More Than These Bones Bebe Backhouse , 2023 selected work poetry ;

'Ali Cobby Eckermann is an award-winning Yankunytjatjara/Kokatha poet and artist. In the words of Yugambeh writer Arlie Alizzi: ‘She Is the Earth is hypnotic, healing and transcendental.’' (Introduction) 

(p. 42-43)
Tips and Tricks : The Same Old Reverence for Journalism, Patrick Mullins , single work review
— Review of Storytellers : Questions, Answers and the Craft of Journalism Leigh Sales , 2023 selected work interview ;

'When the first season of Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom premièred in Australia in 2012, Foxtel had its own onscreen news talent cut a series of promos. A bevy of ageless news anchors – all dense hairdos and blazing white teeth – talked admiringly of how the series portrayed their profession. Journalism, in their telling, was fast-paced, often self-righteous, occasionally fallible, but ultimately always a noble occupation that served the public’s interest. Leigh Sales’s new book, Storytellers, follows a similar line, with the content and even the cover art – a black and white photo of Sales at her news desk, shot from behind, à la Will McAvoy – evincing the same reverence for journalism. Implicitly, too, there is the same nostalgia for the days when everything was just a bit more straightforward.' (Introduction)

(p. 44)
A Time of Transness : A New Phase in Trans Literature, Yves Rees , single work review
— Review of A Real Piece of Work Erin Riley , 2023 selected work essay ;

'Alot can change in a few years. In March 2020, on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic, I wrote a review essay for ABR about the proliferation of trans and gender diverse (TGD) life writing. Back then, the most notable examples came from overseas, and – with the exception of established names like ABC’s Eddie Ayres (now Ed Le Broq), author of the 2017 memoir Danger Music – major Australian publishers had yet to take a chance on local trans voices.' (Introduction)

(p. 49)
Striding beyond Boundaries : The Life of an Enigmatic Traveller, Jacqueline Kent , single work review
— Review of Unfinished Woman Robyn Davidson , 2023 single work autobiography ;
'Robyn Davidson is still best known as the ‘camel lady’, the young writer whose account of her desert trek from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean with four camels and a dog made her internationally famous. Tracks, published in 1980, has never been out of print. Since then Davidson has led a nomadic life – sometimes living in London, sometimes New York, and often exploring the world’s remote places and writing about them and her encounters with desert dwellers. Now, in her early seventies she has returned to her roots, spurred – like many writers at the same stage of their lives – by the need to examine her own past.' 

(Introduction)

(p. 50)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 5 Mar 2024 11:06:47
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