Non-fiction

What are essays for? They are for thinking about things that need to be thought about yet don’t get thought about much, or at all, or interestingly, or for long enough. They are for picking up ideas, feelings, forces in the air, still unnamed and amorphous, and giving them a foothold in language. Whatever is in the air and whatever is disappearing – unnoticed, unmourned. They are for resisting choices offered to us that are not true, yet made to seem inescapable.

‘Far from imagining hunger as an art of discarnation, Wright seeks to give it body, simultaneously remarking on the physicality, the sensuality of the experience, and objectifying it as something outside of herself, material enough to protect her from the world.’ Alys Moody on Fiona Wright’s Small Acts of Disappearance.

‘The work is a kind of biography, or at least enters into the space normally inhabited by the biography, yet it does so more or less exclusively through David Attwell’s reading of the J.M. Coetzee archive at the Harry Ransom Center. I say more or less exclusively because, while he pushes it down in the mix, so to speak, he is one of the best informed critics of Coetzee and has comprehensive knowledge of the critical literature that has built around him, and his book is also informed by this. It is further informed by his capacity as a literary critic, because, as well as developing a focus on Coetzee’s life, Attwell offers strong and original readings of the works themselves.’

‘In Antarctica, Garner harbours a deep anxiety. “Forgive me”, she states, “I’m not here for the wildlife.” She has come on this journey in search of blankness, or at the very least a blank canvas on which to project her moods and emotions. She wants to gaze at ice.’ Bernadette Brennan immerses herself in Helen Garner’s prose.

Whether or not little magazines are idealistic enterprises, they are essential to contemporary literary culture: they showcase new and emerging writers; provide a training ground for editors and administrators; offer more extended literary debates and discussions than the broadsheets; comprise a venue for journalism that contains views outside of the liberal mainstream; serve as rallying points for different communities of readers and coteries of authors; and present a steady stream of readings, events, panel discussions, and online conversations through social media.

‘Truth be told, many writers are angry right now. Perhaps what is most strange about the anger, in Copyfight and elsewhere, is the community indifference to it — that is, our indifference to the damage to the working lives of writers. Mostly we are unmoved.’ Stuart Glover on Copyfight and the long history of trespasses against authors and publishers.

‘It’s as though a well-dressed man has taken off his hat to pat his hair and found a bald spot he then delights in scratching. Never overplayed, and modestly developed, the interplay between the stories of the past and the historian’s self-scrutiny in recounting them is a device that is both charming and revelatory.’ Rosemary Sorensen on Graeme Davison, ‘chattering genealogists’ and family history.

‘Between the World and Me brings a deep engagement with an African American canon usually entirely excluded from the (white) public debate.’ Jeff Sparrow reviews Ta-Nehesi Coates’ new book on contemporary America and the visceral experience of racism.

Daniel Mannix is the greatest churchman in Australian history, but he was far too much of a turbulent priest for the College of Cardinals. This was the man who opposed Billy Hughes’ referendum on conscription and won. This is the man who split the Labor Party down the middle in 1956 and did everything in his considerable power to keep it out of office.

The use of individual cases throughout Across the Seas throws the issues into relief. As Neumann comments, the strategy of rendering refugees anonymous has done much to distance these issues from everyday Australians. It has allowed governments to control the agenda.