culture
culture
books May 8, 2021
Inga Clendinnen: Selected Writings
As this posthumous collection shows, Inga Clendinnen’s faith in the public defined her work. “I … think my readers are as enthralled by the tough issues as I am,” she writes. “ ‘Popular history’ need not mean – must not mean – dumbed-down history.”...
books May 8, 2021
“There’s an idea that a successful narrative is one that gives you no choice in the matter; but mostly I imagine it’s a question of both sides conspiring to keep the suspension aloft.” So writes Rachel Cusk in my favourite of her essays, the titular...
books May 8, 2021
Full Circle: a search for the world that comes next
Those wanting a straightforward reflection on a life in green politics at the tipping point of the Anthropocene may not find what they are looking for in Full Circle: a search for the world that comes next , the authorial debut from former...
culture May 8, 2021
To mark the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s performances of Schubert’s ‘perfect’ quintet, British poet George Szirtes explores how the work generates meaning from disruption and mortality.
television May 8, 2021
Jess Hill’s documentary See What You Made Me Do, based on her best-selling book, is a tough but illuminating look at a scourge of Australian society.
poetry May 8, 2021
(1948–2021) Once there was a way to get back home For Djuna Barnes who wrote The Book of Repulsive Women Thinking about home and where it will be, thinking about home, preoccupied with thinking about home and where will it be. Where will it be? For...
architecture May 8, 2021
The proposed redevelopment of the Australian War Memorial not only compromises Charles Bean’s original vision for a ‘simple, solemn, exquisite building’, it calls into question our processes of public governance.
poetry May 1, 2021
The dilemma of writing a few verses The dilemma of writing a poem without light, without the amenities of paper and ink without the digital keyboard but with memory correcting each verse like a clock tired of telling the time, a fallen rhythm into...
culture May 1, 2021
After a lifetime spent defending human rights, Geoffrey Robertson’s faith in international law is fading. But he is fighting on.
