AustLit

'The May issue of ABR has arrived to keep you company while you wait in line for the next available voting booth. In our cover feature, Frank Bongiorno details how the professionalisation of politics has starved the public of leadership, while Faith Gordon makes the case for lowering the voting age. The issue casts a spotlight on secrets as difficult to face as they are to disinter – from Simon Tedeschi’s Calibre Prize-winning essay on the burden of his grandmother’s memory, to Elizabeth Tynan’s account of the atomic tests in Emu Field, to David Hill’s story of institutionalised abuse at Fairbridge Farm School. Philip Mead assesses Judith Wright’s legacy in prose, while Beejay Silcox wonders if Helen Garner has found the right rhapsodist. There’s new poetry by Michael Hofmann, Theodore Ell, and Katherine Brabon, and reviews of new fiction by Jennifer Egan, Omar Sakr, and Benjamin Stevenson. From busting crooks (political or porcine) to Buster Keaton, there’s plenty to get you through this electoral season!' (Publication summary)