In this highly anticipated new issue, we encounter brilliant examples of what writing can do in a hypernormal time – whether that's Benjamin Gready on the absurdity of fieldwork on land under active occupation or Zahid Gamieldien's short story about a dancing rat who finds itself enmeshed in systems too shadowy to be true. But, as with the emotional cycles of resistance, hope and snark are features too. Dan Hogan considers the lawn as a class obsession, and π.ο. asks a question: why people hate poetry? We also read about a rakhasa family who passes on wisdom to their young kin, a story by Shefali Mathew. And you’ll find new poetry by Eli McLean, Fiona Hile and Sol Chan, among others, as well as a comic by Safdar Ahmed, plus heaps more. Co-editors Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk write in the editorial, "Writing always matters, but it matters most directly in the face of this kind of thuggish assault on language, our first and last commons. We can’t let the bastards have it.”
Born in Sydney, Indigenous writer Andrew Booth has had a diverse senior executive career in the public sector. Subsequently he freelanced as a government adviser in Australia and then in the South Pacific where, in a case of mistaken identity, he was once shot at. He took up writing full time in 2012 and won the Queensland Literary Awards 2015 David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer with his first book, an experimental novel, The First Octoroon or Report of an Experimental Child which will be published by University of Queensland Press in 2017. Andrew spends his time reading, writing and fishing.
