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December 2021, no. 438

December 2021, no. 438

The December issue has arrived and rounds out the year in customary style: a stockingful of reviews, essays, interviews, and our annual ‘Books of the Year’ feature, in which thirty-eight ABR critics highlight their year’s most memorable reads. Paul Muldoon reviews Bruno Latour’s eco-philosophical fable, After Lockdown. While Latour takes inspiration from the termite, Krissy Kneen considers the ways of the dugong in her Calibre Prize-shortlisted essay, a poignant exploration of identity, bodies, and death. In politics, Morag Fraser reviews Judith Brett’s collection of essays and Frank Bongiorno reflects on Noel Pearson’s life in the public eye. The issue looks at fiction by Simone de Beauvoir, the Booker-shortlisted Anuk Arudpragasam, Garry Disher, and Inga Simpson. The literary careers of Gillian Mears and Gerald Murnane are retraced by Brenda Walker and Peter Craven, respectively. Traipsing from Dante’s inferno to China to Western Sydney, the December issue will keep even the most intellectually gluttonous reader sated through the festive season.

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Full Contents

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An interview with Evelyn Juers

by Australian Book Review
Literary Studies

Divining Dante edited by Paul Munden and Nessa O’Mahony

China

Fairweather and China by Claire Roberts

Essay Collection

Mission: Essays, speeches and ideas by Noel Pearson

Essay Collection

Last Letter to a Reader: Essays by Gerald Murnane

Biography

Wulff: Britten’s young Apollo by Tony Scotland

Fiction

The Magpie Wing by Max Easton

Fiction

More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman, translated by Jessica Cohen

Fiction

The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher

Fiction

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam

Fiction

The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Lauren Elkin

Books of the Year

Books of the Year 2021

by ABR contributors
Biography

The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes by Zoë Playdon

Society

After Lockdown: A metamorphosis by Bruno Latour, translated by Julie Rose

Advances

News from ABR

Letters to the Editor

by Patricia Wiltshire, John McBain, Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper, Sue Bond, Iradj Nabavi-Tabrizi