Climate catastrophe, police brutality, white genocide, totalitarian rule and the erasure of black history provide the backdrop for stories of love, courage and hope. In this unflinching new anthology, twelve of Australia's most daring Indigenous writers and writers of colour provide a glimpse of Australia as we head toward the year 2050. Featuring Ambelin Kwaymullina, Claire G. Coleman, Omar Sakr, Future D. Fidel, Karen Wyld, Khalid Warsame, Kaya Ortiz, Roanna Gonsalves, Sarah Ross, Zoya Patel, Michelle Law and Hannah Donnelly. Edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Original concept by Lena Nahlous. Published by Affirm Press in partnership with Diversity Arts Australia and Sweatshop Literacy Movement.
Book 1 tells the story of adolescence in the 1960s and the journey beyond through the 1970s. Life of transformations through drugs, sex, religious cults in the United States told as an outsider to my own life. Book 2 tells the journey of being a male single parent in a foreign country. I tell the path that took one son all the way to being a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers to his death and the path of my other son from a difficult adolescence to a well-integrated human. My own path took me from being a high school drop out to a PhD and teaching at universities and seven years as a tofu manufacturer amongst many other attempts at finding a place in life.
‘The nation’s most prophetic economist’—Ross Gittins In Reset, renowned economist Ross Garnaut shows how the COVID-19 crisis offers Australia the opportunity to reset its economy and build a successful future – and why the old approaches will not work. Garnaut develops the idea of a renewable superpower, he calls for a basic income and he explores what the ‘decoupling’ of China and America will mean for Australia. In the wake of COVID-19, the world has entered its deepest recession since the 1930s. Shocks of this magnitude throw history from its established course – either for good or evil. In 1942 – in the depths of war – the Australian government established a Department of Post-War Reconstruction to plan a future that not only restored existing strengths but also rebuilt the country for a new and better future. As we strive to overcome the coronavirus challenge, we need new, practical ideas to restore Australia. This book has them. La Trobe University Press in conjunction with Black Inc. and the University of Melbourne
The heart-rending story of a child 'Tampa' refugee who grew up to become a Fulbright scholar, highlighting the plight and potential of refugees everywhere. When the Taliban were at the height of their power in 2001, Abbas Nazari's parents were faced with a choice: stay and face persecution in their homeland, or seek security for their young children elsewhere. The family's desperate search for safety took them on a harrowing journey from the mountains of Afghanistan to a small fishing boat in the Indian Ocean, crammed with more than 400 other asylum seekers. When their boat started to sink, they were mercifully saved by a cargo ship, the Tampa. However, one of the largest maritime rescues in modern history quickly turned into an international stand-off, as Australia closed its doors to these asylum seekers. The Tampa had waded into the middle of Australia's national election, sparking their hardline policy of offshore detention. While many of those rescued by the Tampa were the first inmates sent to the island of Nauru, Abbas and his family were some of the lucky few to be resettled in New Zealand. Twenty years after the Tampa affair, Abbas tells his amazing story, from living under Taliban rule, to spending a terrifying month at sea, to building a new life at the bottom of the world. A powerful and inspiring story for our times, After the Tampa celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit: hope.
A blueprint for the nation after the boom. Australians have just lived through a period of exceptional prosperity, but, says influential economist Ross Garnaut, the Dog Days are on their way. Are we ready for the challenges ahead? In Dog Days, Garnaut explains how we got here, what we can expect next and the tough choices we need to make to survive the new economic conditions. Are we clever enough – and our leaders courageous enough – to change what needs to be changed and preserve a fair and prosperous Australia? This is a book about the future by a leading adviser to government and business, someone with a proven record of seeing where the nation is going. Both forecast and analysis, it heralds a new era for Australia after the boom.
After Nature, W. G. Sebald’s first literary work, now translated into English by Michael Hamburger, explores the lives of three men connected by their restless questioning of humankind’s place in the natural world. From the efforts of each, “an order arises, in places beautiful and comforting, though more cruel, too, than the previous state of ignorance.” The first figure is the great German Re-naissance painter Matthias Grünewald. The second is the Enlightenment botanist-explorer Georg Steller, who accompanied Bering to the Arctic. The third is the author himself, who describes his wanderings among landscapes scarred by the wrecked certainties of previous ages. After Nature introduces many of the themes that W. G. Sebald explored in his subsequent books. A haunting vision of the waxing and waning tides of birth and devastation that lie behind and before us, it confirms the author’s position as one of the most profound and original writers of our time.
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the global economy, a reset to serve the wellbeing of people and the planet was plainly needed. As Australia rebuilds, after the immediate health crisis has passed, it must be with the explicit purpose of constructing an economically and ecologically sustainable world. After the Great Depression and the Second World War, economic thinking was transformed across the Anglosphere, with a determination to create a more equitable society and support every child, regardless of background, to achieve their full potential. Australia’s leaders reshaped our economy through a determined and coordinated program of post-war reconstruction. Their reforms set us up for decades of prosperity and the creation of perhaps the most prosperous and stable society on earth. With contributions from some of Australia’s most respected academics and leading thinkers, What Happens Next? sets out a progressive, reforming agenda to tackle the twin crises of climate change and inequality. It provides a framework through which our collective effort can be devoted to improving the lives of all Australians, and the sustainability of the world in which we live.
Stories of life from a remote Aboriginal community that sing with vivid and simple life, truth and power. At the end of 2008, Robbi Neal and her family travelled to the other end of mainland Australia to a remote Aboriginal community. They planned to stay for twelve months. Seven years later, they are still there. This moving collection of linked narratives centring around a remote Indigenous community has been inspired by real people and real events - the stories might read like fiction, but they are based on fact. The events they describe really happened. Each story is true to the person who inspired it and Robbi has been given permission to share these truths by writing them down, both by the person who influenced each story and by the Elders concerned. These stories sing with vivid and simple life, truth and power. These are stories of shame, pain and sorrow, but also joy and love - and they transform our understanding of 'the Indigenous experience'. The narratives tell familiar stories - of dispossession, destitution, children being taken away, hopelessness and powerlessness - but it tells them in a very different, direct, simple and powerfully moving way. Robbi Neal captures in a unique and compelling way the voices and histories of these people - their warmth, humour, wisdom and often their irrepressible joy. AFTER BEFORE TIME is profoundly fresh, powerful and moving. 'Reading After Before Time is a total heart experience. Be prepared to experience a whole gamut of feelings, as there is no soft-pedalling here. The characters disclose the depth of their anger, sadness, grief and pain, directly and bluntly. But there is also great love, warmth, and generosity of spirit towards each other and towards those whites who, over the generations, have loved and tried to help them. The book is rich with insights into customs, traditional beliefs, practices and culture; and humorous observations of what the protagonists regard as absurd white behaviour and demands.' Newtown Review of Books
Daily life descriptions, mutton birding, contemporary social identity; Trefoil Island, Purfleet, Taree, Yaruman, Brewarrina, Bagot, Kuranda, Port Augusta, Fitzroy Crossing, Malgawo, Cherbourg, Davan Island, Boigu Island, Thursday Island, Sabai Island, Robinvale, Leeton, Napranum, Weipa, Yuendumu, Cessnock Gaol, Perth, La Perouse; Bicentenary project.
