Welcome to the August issue of Australian Book Review:
Cover art is by Brenda L. Croft. Click to read her artist's statement.
Bruce Pascoe on Stan Grant
On Identity and Australia Day
Omid Tofighian on the ABR Behrouz Boochani Fellowship
A commentary on the politics of naming
'Nah Doongh's Song'
Grace Karskens' Calibre Prize-winning essay
The ABR Indigenous Fellowship - worth $10,000
Applications are now open until 1 October 2019
Forging a Treaty
Sarah Maddison and Dale Wandin on the vexed process
Ellen van Neerven on Tara June Winch
And Winch's new novel The Yield
Sandra R. Phillips on Tony Birch
And Birch's new novel The White Girl
August 2019, no. 413
Bruce Pascoe reviews On Identity and Australia Day by Stan Grant
It was a great moment in Australian history when William Cooper walked to the Australian parliament to object to the treatment of Jews in Germany during World War II. At the time, the British and Australian parliaments were ambivalent about the atrocities occurring across Europe ...
2019 Calibre Essay Prize (Winner): 'Nah Doongh’s Song' by Grace Karskens
Nah Doongh was among the first generation of Aboriginal children who grew up in a conquered land. She was born around 1800 in the Country near present-day Kingswood, just south-east of Moorroo Morack, Penrith, and she lived until the late 1890s ...
Publisher of the Month with Rachel Bin Salleh
I do think that concentrating on getting good stories from literate peoples may be a narrow way of looking at the world. Statements by some non-Indigenous publishers that they have ‘standards’ when it comes to First Nations writing are also extraordinarily limiting. Honestly, you mob seriously need to think outside the box and open up to different ways of thinking.
Sandra R. Phillips reviews The White Girl by Tony Birch
If the number of reviews and interviews are indicators of a new book’s impact, Tony Birch’s novel The White Girl has landed like a B-format sized asteroid. Birch’s publisher estimates a substantial number of reviews and other features since publication. I’ve consulted none of them ...
