Advances
Two Bob’s Worth
Lorna Hallahan and David Hansen are the joint winners of the 2010 Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay, the fourth to be presented by ABR, in association with Copyright Agency Limited’s Cultural Fund. The judges – critic James Ley and ABR Editor Peter Rose – chose from almost 200 entries. Both essays appear in this issue. We list the other shortlisted essays on page 29 and congratulate all the essayists.
... (read more)Robert Dessaix and China
During Writers’ Week last month, many of the writers on the program were outraged to learn of the plight of their fellow guest Robert Dessaix. The celebrated author of A Mother’s Disgrace and Arabesques was scheduled to fly to China at the conclusion of Writers’ Week, having been invited by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to take part in Shanghai’s International Literary Festival, along with writers such as Les Murray and Alexis Wright. China then banned Dr Dessaix from entering the country because of his HIV status. Ironically or not (was there a punitive link here, Robert Dessaix wondered in public), he was replacing Frank Moorhouse, who had withdrawn from the festival because of the imprisonment of Chinese writers. Led by Michelle de Kretser and Charlotte Wood, one hundred Australian authors and commentators protested at this offensive and unenlightened decision, as did ABR and the Australian Society of Authors. China’s discriminatory policy was widely criticised, even in China.
... (read more)ON CLOUDSTREET
When we sought readers’ nominations for the ABR Favourite Australian Novel of any era or genre, we anticipated goodly interest in the poll, partly because we know you are a well-read and passionate bunch, but also because Oxford University Press and Penguin had offered us a couple of outstanding prizes to complement our three-year subscription to the magazine.
... (read more)Reading the leaves
ABR readers, it is now abundantly clear, are great democrats and colossal readers. You love to vote, and you read like clairvoyants. We have been inundated with votes in the ABR FAN Poll – hundreds of them most days. With two weeks to go before voting closes (December 15), some clear favourites are emerging. Below we list twenty of them, in alphabetical order:
... (read more)The ABR FAN Poll
Film-makers are forever squabbling over the Top Ten films of all time – a kind of Raging Bullfight – and the symphonists had their sonorous say recently, when ABC Classic FM invited listeners to nominate their classic 100 symphonies. So we thought it might be fun – instructive too – to poll our readers with regard to their Favourite Australian Novel.
... (read more)The Choir of the Just
Peter Craven’s review of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature has generated much comment, some of it favourable, some not. Much of the latter was concentrated on the Internet, with the kind of reflexive, personality-driven, bien-pensant umbrage that often passes for literary discourse in the blogosphere. James Joyce’s phrase ‘the choir of the just’ springs to mind. What comes through is a shrill note of intolerance, the implication that because certain people disagree with other people’s views, the latter should not be aired. So much for liberal values.
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Ideal climate for writing
Climate change poses undoubted challenges for science – and society – but what exactly does the phenomenon mean for Australian cultural life? The University of Melbourne’s inaugural Festival of Ideas, June 15–20, investigates the question, with a program featuring scientists, environmentalists, archi ...
Jacqueline Kent chooses the most interesting biographical subjects. Her first was Beatrice Davis, doyenne of Australian book editors. A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life won the National Biography Award in 2002. Next came An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin (2008). Now we read with interest that she is writing the biography of Julia Gillard, the deputy prime minister.
... (read more)‘Urgent things to say’ in the Calibre Prize
The competition was keen, the field unprecedentedly large (almost 200 entries), but after main readings and much discussion Kevin Brophy’s and Jane Goodall’s essays struck the judges of this year’s Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay (Gay Bilson, Peter Rose and Rebecca Starford) as being in a class of their own. It was impossible to split them. Both writers share the third Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay, and each will receive $5000.
That’s all they have in common, though. It would be difficult to find two more dissimilar essays, a measure of Calibre’s versatility and the diversity of the writers who are drawn to it. Jane Goodall’s theme, like her succinct title (‘Footprints’), has a kind of suaveness and urgency as she explores ideas about ecology and personal responsibility with reference to Kate Grenville, Mrs Aeneas Gunn, Nevil Shute and a sublime short story by Leo Tolstoy.
Kevin Brophy’s fruity title (‘“What’re yer lookin’ at yer fuckin’ dog?”: Violence and Fear in Žižek’s Post-political Neighbourhood’) introduces an amazing tale of domestic mayhem and incivility in present-day inner Melbourne. Kevin Brophy’s tormentors may have been the neighbours from hell, but what a tale it is. To make sense of this five-year drama, Kevin Brophy draws on the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and his theory that violence – ubiquitous violence, as he sees it – is the very basis of late capitalist ‘post-political’ life.
... (read more)Black Saturday
The devastating Victorian bushfires of early February seem to have changed the state forever. The death toll, still not confirmed as we go to print, is incredible. The natural environment, always fragile in this state, has never seemed so vulnerable. It will take decades to recover.
Our condolences go to all the victims of the fires. Few Victorians were unaffected, directly or indirectly. Last month, in his ABR review of Tim Birkhead’s The Wisdom of Birds, Peter Menkhorst cited the internationally renowned La Trobe University ornithologist Richard Zann. Dr Zann, along with his wife and daughter, died in the Kinglake fire.
ABR wishes to donate books and magazines to affected communities and their public libraries. This is difficult at present. Two thousand houses and libraries – private or institutional – have been destroyed. The Australian Society of Authors, the Australian Booksellers’ Association and the Australian Publishers’ Association (of which ABR is a member) have joined forces to restock libraries and schools in devastated areas.
In the meantime, if you know of any individuals who have lost their libraries, please contact the Editor, who will endeavour to arrange a suitable donation.
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