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Australianama : The South Asian Odyssey in Australia single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 Australianama : The South Asian Odyssey in Australia
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The autobiographical opening of Samia Khatun's book takes us back to the year 2008, to a psychiatric ward in outer Sydney, where the author's mother, Eshrat, a Muslim migrant from Bangladesh, is locked up in her room by night with a fellow inmate, a uniformed soldier from the Holdsworthy Barracks, newly returned from the front in Afghanistan. Eshrat, all too aware of the fate of thousands of fellow Muslims murdered by Australian forces in Afghanistan, begins to experience terrifying visions of her Quran melting before her eyes.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

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    y separately published work icon Australian Historical Studies Special Issue : Australia and the ‘End’ of World War I vol. 52 no. 1 2021 21211138 2021 periodical issue 'At dawn on Saturday 25 April 2020, hundreds of Australians gathered in their driveways to observe a minute of silence to commemorate Anzac Day. In suburbs across the country they found inventive ways to mark the occasion, decorating fences with rosemary and wreaths, letterboxes with paper poppies, and pathways with candles and chalked messages ‘Lest we forget’. Anzac Day fell during the national COVID-19 pandemic shutdown and ‘Light up the Dawn’ or ‘Stand at Dawn’, as the Returned Services League (RSL) termed it, was a response to the cancellation of dawn services around Australia. After the recent decline in Anzac Day Dawn Service attendance of post-centenary celebrations, it was a poignant act of remembrance and one that was perhaps all the more moving given its disconcerting echoes with history. Only once before in its over one-hundred-year history had Anzac Day ceremonies been similarly disrupted, during the public health crisis brought about by the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1919, when most events were postponed and some even cancelled. Anzac Day 2020 was not only a commemoration of the country’s military past but also an event, like Anzac Day 1919, that connected communities in the face of a global pandemic and the social isolation that it brought in its wake. The traditions sparked by World War I still hold an important place in Australian political and cultural life, and today, as the country deals with crises that resonate with those of a century ago, the history of this conflict has a heightened relevance.' (Romain Fathi, Andrekos Vanarva, Michael Walsh : Editorial Introduction) 2021 pg. 127-128
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Works about this Work

Matthew Da Silva Reviews Australianama : The South Asian Odyssey in Australia by Samia Khatun Matthew Da Silva , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Australianama : The South Asian Odyssey in Australia Suvendrini Perera , 2021 single work review

'Samia Khatun takes a tack pioneered by Peter Drew, an Australian who made posters labelled with the word “Aussie” and featuring a migrant cameleer. He wrote about the development of his art practice in ‘Poster Boy: A Memoir of Art and Politics,’ (2019). It’s a slightly confused account of a life spent looking for battles to fight. Khatun fights her own battle but uses different language and aims stronger barbs at a long-absent colonial power.' (Introduction)
Matthew Da Silva Reviews Australianama : The South Asian Odyssey in Australia by Samia Khatun Matthew Da Silva , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Australianama : The South Asian Odyssey in Australia Suvendrini Perera , 2021 single work review

'Samia Khatun takes a tack pioneered by Peter Drew, an Australian who made posters labelled with the word “Aussie” and featuring a migrant cameleer. He wrote about the development of his art practice in ‘Poster Boy: A Memoir of Art and Politics,’ (2019). It’s a slightly confused account of a life spent looking for battles to fight. Khatun fights her own battle but uses different language and aims stronger barbs at a long-absent colonial power.' (Introduction)
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Last amended 3 Mar 2021 14:44:46
127-128 Australianama : The South Asian Odyssey in Australiasmall AustLit logo Australian Historical Studies
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