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.”
Vincent Lingiari was a Kadijeri man. He led the Gurindji people off Wave Hill station in 1966. In 1975, in a now famously symbolic gesture, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam poured earth into Lingiari’s hand to mark the giving of a lease of 3300 square kilometres to the Muramulla Gurindji Company. Lingiari continued to play a leadership role as the Gurindji people established this company on lands finally recognised as belonging to them. Vincent Lingiari has become a national iconic figure representing, more broadly, the struggle of Aboriginal people to have their rights to land recognised.
