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Short Black 3 The War of the Worlds
Short Black 5 The Brave Ones: East Timor, 1999
Short Black 2 Fat City
Ebook series9 titles

Short Black Series

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About this series

I will continue my work on my land, building a future. It is the only thing that is certain to me now and I want to advance while I can. I am trying to light the fire in our young men and women. We are setting fires to our own lives as we really should, and the flame will burn and intensify – an immense smoke, cloud-like and black, will arise, which will send off a signal and remind people that we, the Gumatj people, are the people of the fire. There are people of the fire around Alice Springs – and I reach out to them, too. We can then burn united, together.

Tradition, Truth & Tomorrow is 'no mere essay. It is an existential prayer,' writes Noel Pearson. Galarrwuy Yunupingu tells of his clan and his early life. He recounts his dealings with prime ministers, and how he learnt that nothing is ever what it seems. And behind him, he writes, ‘the Yolngu world is always under threat, being swallowed up by whitefellas. This is a weight that is bearing down on me; at night it is like a splinter in my mind.’

Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind.

Galarrwuy Yunupingu is a member of the Gumatj clan from Yirrkala, in east Arnhem Land. He played a key role in the battle for indigenous land rights and has been a strong advocate for Aboriginal Australians. He was Australian of the Year in 1978, and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1985 for services to the Aboriginal community.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 23, 2015
Short Black 3 The War of the Worlds
Short Black 5 The Brave Ones: East Timor, 1999
Short Black 2 Fat City

Titles in the series (9)

  • Short Black 2 Fat City

    2

    Short Black 2 Fat City
    Short Black 2 Fat City

    I ask a young 200-kilo patient what he snacks on. “Nothing,” he says. I look him in the eye. Nothing? He nods. I ask him about his chronic skin infections, his diabetes. He tears up: “I eat hot chips and fried dim sims and drink three bottles of Coke every afternoon. The truth is I’m addicted to eating. I’m addicted.” He punches his thigh. In Fat City, Karen Hitchcock unpicks the idea of obesity as a disease. In a riveting blend of story and analysis, she explores chemistry, psychology and the impulse to excess to explain the West’s growing obesity epidemic. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. Karen Hitchcock is the author of the award-winning story collection Little White Slips and a regular contributor to the Monthly. She is also a staff physician in acute and general medicine at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne.

  • Short Black 3 The War of the Worlds

    3

    Short Black 3 The War of the Worlds
    Short Black 3 The War of the Worlds

    How many Australians born in the 137 years since Truganini's death learnt her legend and scarcely thought deeper about the enormity of the loss she represented, and the history that led to it? Her spirit casts a long shadow over Australian history, but we have nearly all of us found a way to avert our eyes from its meaning. In The War of the Worlds, Noel Pearson considers the most confronting issue of Australian history: the question of genocide, in early Tasmania and elsewhere. With eloquence and passion, he explores the 'emotional convulsions of identification and memory' that he feels on encountering these events. Re-reading Dickens and Darwin, Pearson acknowledges the 'fatal logic' of the colonial project, and seeks to draw out its meaning for Australians today. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. Noel Pearson is a lawyer and activist, and the founder of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. He is the author of Up from the Mission and two acclaimed Quarterly Essays, Radical Hope and A Rightful Place.

  • Short Black 5 The Brave Ones: East Timor, 1999

    5

    Short Black 5 The Brave Ones: East Timor, 1999
    Short Black 5 The Brave Ones: East Timor, 1999

    As the convoy growled and squeaked to a halt in the dark, angry militiamen and soldiers began to shout and wave at the Australians, demanding they move aside. The Brave Ones' vanguard presented as a B-movie vision of some pirate biker gang from Hell, a rat bastard outfit in black tee-shirts, camouflage pants, long hair and bandanas, with axes in their eyes and guns at the ready. The Brave Ones follows the Indonesian Army's Battalion 745 as it withdrew from East Timor after the 1999 independence vote, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. Birmingham's unflinching account reveals the scorched-earth tactics of the retreating troops, and shows just how close Australia came to armed conflict with Indonesia. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. John Birmingham is the author of He Died with a Felafel in His Hand, Leviathan: The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney, three popular fiction series and two Quarterly Essays.

  • Short Black 4 Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice

    4

    Short Black 4 Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice
    Short Black 4 Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice

    They say that tourist ships to Antarctica, even more than ordinary human conveyances, are loaded down with aching hearts. Deceived wives and widowers, men who've never been loved and don't know why, Russian crew forced to leave their children behind for years at a time … And then there are the married couples: how calm the old ones, how eager the new! – but isn't a couple the greatest mystery of all? Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice is the tale of a journey to Antarctica aboard the Professor Molchanov. With unmatched eloquence, Helen Garner spins a tale of ships, icebergs, tourism, time, photography and the many forms of desolation. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. Helen Garner has written novels, short stories, screenplays and many acclaimed works of journalism. She was the recipient of the 2006 Melbourne Prize for Literature. Her books include Monkey Grip, The Children’s Bach, Joe Cinque’s Consolation, The Spare Room and This House of Grief.

  • Short Black 6 Booze Territory

    6

    Short Black 6 Booze Territory
    Short Black 6 Booze Territory

    On a Tuesday morning, I make my way to the Gap View Hotel for a drinking session starting at 10 a.m. I'm told this is one of Alice Springs' three notorious 'animal bars' … As I wander around, a Sudanese security guard approaches me, his face concerned. Am I lost? he wants to know. In a way, I am. I don't want a beer. It's 10 a.m., for Chrissake. In Booze Territory, Anna Krien takes a clear-eyed look at Indigenous binge-drinking – who does it, why, and what it means. She visits bars brimming with morning drinkers and investigates alcoholic after-effects ranging from extreme violence to extraordinarily high rates of cirrhosis of the liver. This is an essay which never fails to see the human dimension of an intractable problem and shine a light on its deep causes. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. Anna Krien is the author of Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport, Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania's Forests and Quarterly Essay 45 Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals. Anna's work has been published in the Monthly, the Age, the Big Issue, The Best Australian Essays, The Best Australian Stories, Griffith Review, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, Colors, Frankie and Dazed & Confused.

  • Short Black 8 Prosper: A Voyage at Sea

    8

    Short Black 8 Prosper: A Voyage at Sea
    Short Black 8 Prosper: A Voyage at Sea

    A big liner, brightly lit, passes us one or two cable-lengths ahead. ‘Ow! They are guzzling champagne but cannot see what's in front of them!’ grumbles Etienne, who has the helm and puts Prosper back on course. Our wooden boat, which one long wave can carry, is a mere cork in the wake of that ship, which crushes three dozen such waves under her uncaring steel plates. How many hundreds of men does she carry? Up there, people laugh, play, dream, eat and sleep … while we, a few feet above the water, surrounded by dancing lights, keep watch till dawn. One summer, Simon Leys joined the crew of a tuna-fishing boat in Brittany, one of the last boats working under sail. In this exceptionally beautiful and elegiac essay, he evokes the traditions, hardships and dangers of the oldest and finest form of seamanship. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. Simon Leys is the pen-name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993. His writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Littéraire, Quadrant and the Monthly, and his books include The Hall of Uselessness, The Death of Napoleon, Other People’s Thoughts and The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper. In 1996 he delivered the ABC’s Boyer Lectures. His many awards include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, the Prix Guizot and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.

  • Short Black 9 Cypherpunk Revolutionary: On Julian Assange

    9

    Short Black 9 Cypherpunk Revolutionary: On Julian Assange
    Short Black 9 Cypherpunk Revolutionary: On Julian Assange

    There are few original ideas in politics. In the creation of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange was responsible for one. This essay reveals the making of Julian Assange – both his ideas and his world-changing actions. Robert Manne explores Assange's unruly childhood and then his involvement with the revolutionary cypherpunk underground, all the way through to the creation of WikiLeaks. Pulling together the threads of his development, Manne shows how Assange became one of the most influential Australians of our time. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. Robert Manne is professor of politics at La Trobe University and a regular commentator with the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC radio and television.

  • Short Black 11 No Fixed Address

    11

    Short Black 11 No Fixed Address
    Short Black 11 No Fixed Address

    In every religion I can think of, there exists some variation on the theme of abandoning the settled life and walking one's way to godliness. The Hindu Sadhu, leaving behind family and wealth to live as a beggar; the pilgrims of Compostela walking away their sins; the circumambulators of the Buddhist kora; the Hajj. What could this ritual journeying be but symbolic, idealised versions of the foraging life? By taking to the road we free ourselves of baggage, both physical and psychological. We walk back to our original condition, to our best selves. After many thousands of years, the nomads are disappearing, swept away by modernity. Robyn Davidson has spent a good part of her life with nomadic cultures. In this fascinating and moving essay she evokes a vanishing way of life, and notes a paradox: that even as classical nomads are disappearing, hypermobility has become the hallmark of contemporary life. In a time of environmental peril, she argues, the nomadic way with nature still offers valuable lessons. No Fixed Address is part lament, part evocation and part exhilarating speculative journey. Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind Robyn Davidson is an award-winning writer who has travelled and published widely. Her books include Tracks, Desert Places, Quarterly Essay 24: No Fixed Address: Nomads and the Future of the Planet and, as editor, The Picador Book of Journeys and The Best Australian Essays 2009. Her essays have appeared in Granta, the Monthly, the Bulletin and Griffith Review, amongst others.

  • Short Black 12 Tradition, Truth and Tomorrow

    12

    Short Black 12 Tradition, Truth and Tomorrow
    Short Black 12 Tradition, Truth and Tomorrow

    I will continue my work on my land, building a future. It is the only thing that is certain to me now and I want to advance while I can. I am trying to light the fire in our young men and women. We are setting fires to our own lives as we really should, and the flame will burn and intensify – an immense smoke, cloud-like and black, will arise, which will send off a signal and remind people that we, the Gumatj people, are the people of the fire. There are people of the fire around Alice Springs – and I reach out to them, too. We can then burn united, together. Tradition, Truth & Tomorrow is 'no mere essay. It is an existential prayer,' writes Noel Pearson. Galarrwuy Yunupingu tells of his clan and his early life. He recounts his dealings with prime ministers, and how he learnt that nothing is ever what it seems. And behind him, he writes, ‘the Yolngu world is always under threat, being swallowed up by whitefellas. This is a weight that is bearing down on me; at night it is like a splinter in my mind.’ Short Blacks are gems of recent Australian writing – brisk reads that quicken the pulse and stimulate the mind. Galarrwuy Yunupingu is a member of the Gumatj clan from Yirrkala, in east Arnhem Land. He played a key role in the battle for indigenous land rights and has been a strong advocate for Aboriginal Australians. He was Australian of the Year in 1978, and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1985 for services to the Aboriginal community.

Author

David Malouf

David Malouf is the author of poems, fiction, libretti and essays. In 1996, his novel Remembering Babylon was awarded the first International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His 1998 Boyer Lectures were published as A Spirit of Play: The Making of Australian Consciousness. In 2000 he was selected as the sixteenth Neustadt Laureate. His most recent novel is Ransom.

Read more from David Malouf

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