Explore Essays and memoir
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The Wolf at the Door
Cal Flyn
‘Wolves brook no bureaucracy. They do not believe in borders. It has been years since we have come face to face with apex predators in our own country.’
Prepare to Be Kind
Rebecca Priestley
‘Looking forward to 2100, it’s a choice between another thirty centimetres of sea level rise if we do everything we can to cut our carbon emissions, and up to two metres of sea level rise if we don’t.’
The Dragon’s Den
Tim Flannery
‘Just imagine the Australian inland with herds of rhino-sized diprotodon, as well as other gigantic marsupials, being preyed on by marsupial lions and Komodo dragons.’
The Possibility of an Emperor
Patrick Barkham
‘I had always been told that the purple emperor was rare because old woods were rare.’
Aliens and Us
Ken Thompson
‘Japanese knotweed is a terrific late-season source of nectar for both bees and hoverflies, but that’s not much of a headline, is it?’
Upirngasaq (Arctic Spring)
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
‘Everyone benefits from a frozen Arctic. The future of the Arctic environment, and the Inuit it supports, is inextricably tied to the future of the planet.’
Kōbō Abe
Thomas McMullan
‘Against the immensity of things, look at what you can grasp, he seems to say. Grasp it tightly.’
Thomas McMullan on the writing of Kōbō Abe.
Paris Desert, Tokyo Mirage
Hitomi Kanehara
‘What I thought was the world yesterday, today I couldn’t even touch its outline.’
Two essays by Hitomi Kanehara.
Cheating
Ahmet Altan
‘I get into the police car with four officers from the Anti-Terrorism Branch. They are taking me to the prison.’
Inferno
Catherine Cho
‘My son was eight days shy of his 100-day celebration when I started to see devils in his eyes.’
Catherine Cho’s Inferno is shortlisted for the 2020 Young Writer of the Year Award.
The Death of Distance
Samrat Choudhury
‘It might take only one soldier being shot across the Chinese–Indian border for war to begin. The howitzers, tanks, missiles and fighter jets are lined up, ready and waiting for action.’
The Only Way Out Is Through
Hana Pera Aoake
‘Hiding in kumara pits on the side of volcanoes, I was born with an egg inside me ready to be baked.’
