Overland 254 is the first in a set of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. This issue also launches a new design and format by Common Room Editions, inspired by Overland’s trove of radical literature spanning from 1954 to today. Andrew Brooks and Astrid Lorange consider the asymmetrical responses to two events: the wearing of keffiyehs by three cast members during the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, and, on the same day in the US, the shooting of three Palestinian men wearing keffiyehs. Jeff Sparrow uncovers the Sydney Herald’s legacy of Terra Nullius, and Daniel Lopez writes on Marx, Meredith and the festival as an inversion of modern life.
Arnold Zable is a writer, novelist and human rights advocate. His books include Jewels and Ashes, The Fig Tree, Violin Lessons and three novels – Café Scheherazade, Scraps of Heaven and Sea of Many Returns. He is president of the Melbourne centre of International PEN and a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at Melbourne University.
