AustLit

'Every apocalypse needs its own theme song, and writer and radio maker Belinda Lopez has chosen the Cielito Lindo — Sing and Don't Cry.

'It's the "ay ay ay ay" song — the beloved tune of Mariachi bands the world over.

'She sings it to her baby every night, to soothe herself, as much as for her as her little girl.

'Belinda's mother and father sing it too, over Facetime, to their first and only grandchild.

'But is it okay to sing and not cry in a global pandemic?'

Source: Radio National Fictions.

'Querido Yayo, my grandfather, you started attending Communist Party rallies when you arrived in Sydney, no? Mama remembers watching you on May Day on the sidelines of the march - a little girl seeing her father hold up a flag. From what I know of your politics, you weren't precisely a communist. I think you joined because finally you could. Australia let you do that. Here, from Franco's Spain, here were the ideas speaking to you. I remember seeing a photo of you marching. In my mind there is a cigar in your mouth, but then that's how I always remember you.'  (Publication abstract)

'I arrived in Burma calling the country by its old name and left calling it by its official name, Myanmar. In seventeen days I was convinced that the name given to the country by a military dictatorship was indeed the correct one. Perhaps I'd inhaled propaganda like second-hand smoke in my conversations with 'Myanmar people', as they call themselves. They told me over and over again that the name better represented all the minority nationalities in the country. Burma, they said, was only for the Burmese - the dominant ethnic group. Critics of the government have argued that the name change to Myanmar was something of a 'unite and conquer strategy' by the military, and it did seem something of a flawed logic that Burmese (the language) is also now referred to as 'Myanmar language'.' (Publication abstract)