AustLit

'Revered Indigenous singer-songwriter Gurrumul left behind a trove of unreleased works that will come to light through a bold new deal, writes Rosemary Neill That high tenor voice could stop you in your tracks: at once achingly tender and deeply powerful, it resonated with listeners from Sting and Elton John to members of the Gumatj clan on Elcho Island, off the Arnhem Land coast.' (Introduction)

'Both structurally and thematically A Lion Returns is one of the boldest and most inventive Australian films seen in recent years. It’s a fine achievement for Serhat Caradee whose first feature, the excellent Cedar Boys, won the Audience Award at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival.' (Introduction)

'Catherine Dwyer’s excellent documentary, Brazen Hussies, is a timely reminder as to how quickly attitudes towards women, not just in Australia but in many parts of the western world, changed between 1965 and 1975. The rise of feminism is depicted both via an exemplary use of archive footage, much of it revelatory, and also by means of interviews with many of the women who, 50 years ago, were at the forefront of women’s liberation and who, it must be said, have aged with distinction and grace.'  (Introduction)

'Tom Keneally ’s love letter to ‘Australia’s groundkeeper’ I got to know echidnas only after I moved to Manly and became an habitue of the wonderful headland scrub of North Head. It is a place where on bush tracks, and sometimes on the street, you encounter them, these well-spurred, spiky balls of spines with what I find to be an amiable snouted face.' (Introduction)

'On her deathbed, my grandmother wrote me a letter to be opened on my 18th birthday. When the time came, she was an echo of a memory; all that was left to miss was the idea of her. Yet there was an unexpected power in that long-waiting note with all its fervent, paper hopes. It was proof I had been precious to someone.' (Introduction)

'In the final pages of his third autobiographical book in four years, Jimmy Barnes breaks the fourth wall to let the reader in on his experience of writing the previous 400 pages. “The act of writing used to be a painful process for me,” he notes. “Trawling through the wreckage that was my childhood caused me immense pain, but I had to do it. I needed to look at it all in the cold, clear light of day, so that I could let it all go.” Then his thoughts are interrupted by the voice of his five-year-old grandson, Dylan, whose sense of innocence and wonder is infectious, and whose life experience is untainted by the misery that Barnes went through in the 1960s.'  (Introduction)