January–February 2026, no. 483
As 2026 dawns, five Jewish Australians reflect on the event that marked the final weeks of 2025. Robert Manne, Ilana Snyder, Simon Tedeschi, Lee Kofman, and Dennis Altman explain their thinking and convey their feeling. Elsewhere in the issue, Australia’s leading critics and writers nominate their arts highlights of 2025. Which opera attracted more nominations than any other arts event in Australia last year? We announce the 2026 Peter Porter Poetry Prize shortlist and publish the five shortlisted poems. Of the poems entered this year, judges Judith Bishop, Felicity Plunkett, and Anders Villani said: ‘If the poems had a palette, its accent was the green of hope and healing’. Meanwhile, Beejay Silcox reviews three literary responses to the mushroom murders; Mindy Gill, Richard King, and Diane Stubbings review essay collections by Zadie Smith, Dennis Altman, and Anne Enright; and Felicity Plunkett, Patrick Mullins, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, and Esther Anatolitis review memoirs by Jeanette Winterson, Ita Buttrose, Arundhati Roy, and Yanis Varoufakis. Jonathan Ricketson reviews the Collected Diaries of Helen Garner, Sheila Fitzpatrick posts a Letter from America, and we review fiction by Andrew Pippos, Thomas Pynchon, and Bri Lee, as well as poetry by Luke Patterson, Ender Başkan, and Anna Jacobson, plus so much more.
Image Credit: Billie Wilson-Coffey in Orpheus & Eurydice presented by Opera Australia and Edinburgh International Festival in association with Circa (photograph by Jeff Busby)