EssayWHAT I WANT is for three people to speak to you. Merlinda Bobis, Julie Koh and Mammad Aidani. You may know one of them, three of them, none of them. Whatever. I will speak to you too, I guess. So it’s one...

EssayJOAN DIDION WROTE 'we tell ourselves stories in order to live', and so often has the idea that humanity runs on stories been asserted of late that it has come to resemble a self-evident truth until, in next to...

ReportageI DON'T USUALLY like cheery people – those full of gratitude for life's little miracles and small blessings. I have crossed streets to avoid getting fried in the eternal sunshine of their minds. Not Anya though. Her optimism does...

EssaySOMETHING IS MISSING from the debates about teaching history in Australian schools, even though their explosive, raw and at times distinctly personal quality must surely be a good sign. If we are not prepared to shout and bang on...

EssayAT THE FUNERAL of Chile's General Pinochet, in December 2006, Francisco Cuadrado Prats stood for hours in a queue of grieving mourners. When it was his time to say goodbye, he walked up to the coffin and spat on...