AustLit

'This sounds cheesy, and in a way it is. And sometimes it doesn’t work. A lifetime in a racist society is hardly undone by one conversation at a door, no matter how convincing. But it is drastically more effective than dismissing or lecturing. If I were to hazard a guess at how the left can win over right-wing voters – and, for that matter, Labor voters who need more than a simple alignment of policy positions with personal concerns – it would be in the articulation of a broad, transformative vision for changing society. This is otherwise known as a politics.'  (Introduction)

'Before becoming a writer, I trained in anthropology, a discipline traditionally concerned with ritual. This training has served me unexpectedly well over nearly ten years of involvement in left-wing organising: the left is a space heavy with codified language and actions, and governed by a set of intricate, unwritten rules usually viewed by outsiders as mysterious, ridiculous, or both. In particular, I have recently found myself considering the ritualistic way in which people on the left feel compelled to offer apologies for having a relatively stable, relatively plentiful life – often glossed as various forms of ‘privilege’.' (Introduction)

'In La Paz, I live with an old couple who do not know my name. They are both losing their grip on the order of things, you can tell from the look of distant confusion that flits across their faces when they ask me, for the umpteenth time, ¿tu nombre? To get to my room at the top of their house I have to climb several flights of stairs, and the thin air leaves me gasping for breath. It’s unsettling to stand on the landing with your head spinning, vision blacking in and out, and then to hear a thin wavering voice float up from below: ¿tu nombre? No matter how many times I tell them my name, the question repeats itself, sending a cold electric jolt up my spine: has there been a mistake? Am I allowed to be here? But I have always known myself as an imposter, skirting the edges of an eventual exposure. For years the moment arrived in a recurring dream: I stood at a conference podium reading my thesis to an audience that appeared not to hear me. Even my supervisor’s face was blank. What are you doing here? Your name? Coming now from the bottom of the stairs, the question prods at the raw, flickering heart of my old fear. As if the reckoning I waited for has arrived to meet me in La Paz, Bolivia: the highest city in the world.'  (Introduction)