AustLit

'On the same July day that a 5,800km section of the Larsen C ice shelf calved off from Antarctica, sending Twitter into a fresh bout of eco-anxiety, one of us was people-watching a Melbourne street where all appeared to be business as usual. Despite the rain, teens queued for supersized cartoon-pink iced donuts; one 4WD driver got into a fight with another, after stealing her park. It was the type of prosaic horror that might be found in a short story by George Saunders, whose absurdist fiction compassionately engages with our times, and who happens to be interviewed in this issue. “Don’t be afraid to be confused,” writes Saunders in The Braindead Megaphone—as if there were another option available to us in this winter of stuplimity.'

'('Why haven’t you let them out? Why have you not let them into your society?')'

(Editorial)