The Best Australian Essays 2003

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Setting the benchmark for the Australian essay the definitive, up-to-date collection. Each year, The Best Australian Essays brings together the most outstanding non-fiction from around the country. In 2011, to celebrate a rich decade of writing on all manner of topics, Black Inc.

In Made in England: Australia's British Inheritance, David Malouf looks at Australia's bond with Britain and wonders whether it wasn't the Mother Country which did most of the giving. This is an essay which presents British civilisation, the civilisation of Shakespeare and the Enlightenment and the Westminster system, as the irreducible ground on which any Australian achievement is based. Britain has always been the tolerant parent, and an older Australia could be both intensely patriotic and see itself as what it was, a transplantation of Britain. This relationship did not exclude America but it made for a sometimes complicated threesome of nations. This is a brilliant, deeply meditated essay by one of our finest writers about the traditions that shaped Australia and which connect it to one of the mightier traditions in world history. ‘Any argument for [the republic] based on the need to make a final break with Britain will fail.’ —David Malouf, Made in England ‘Made in England is ... a case of one of Australia's most eminent novelists allowing himself to imagine, and by imagining to analyse, the hopes and glories, once and future, that were part of this new Britannia.’ —Peter Craven ‘[An] infinitely rich account of Australian history, speech and social ways ... a deft and instructive rebuttal of any reductive, self-interested assertions about identity and nationality.’ —Morag Fraser, Australian Book Review ‘David Malouf is that old fashioned phenomenon, a cultivated man.’ —Gerard Windsor ‘The essay has all the qualities we’d expect from the author – sensuous memory, intelligence, elegance, and a bit of a Shakespeherian rag.’ —Overland David Malouf is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. He 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.

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New editor is Drusilla Modjeska, author of The Orchard, Stravinsky's Lunchand Timepieces. Past contributors include- Helen Garner, Inga Clendinnen, Robert Manne, Thomas Keneally, Richard Flanagan, Tim Flannery, M.J. Hyland, Barry Humphries, Peter Rose, Chloe Hooper, Gideon Haigh, Kate Jennings and many more. High profile extracts, reviews and feature interviews in weekend magazines and newspapers.

This year's Best Australian Essays ranges far and wide. There are portraits of Michael Jackson, Samuel Beckett, the kookaburra, Julia Gillard and Charles Darwin. There are dazzling pieces on commerce and cricket, extinction and translation, perfume and politics. There are journeys through landscapes scorched and recovering, and reflections on tu...

The best of the best This essential book takes a decade of Best Australian Essays and selects the cream of the crop. These are the pieces that have captured key events - from September 11 to Victoria's fires - changed the way we see the nation, for good or ill - from Anzac Day to Palm Island - investigated intriguing figures - from Oskar Schindler to Charles Darwin - or which simply represent a peak of the writer's art. Contributors include: Thomas Keneally, Chloe Hooper, Peter Porter, David Malouf, John Birmingham, Helen Garner, Inga Clendinnen, MJ Hyland, Barry Humphries, David Marr, Clive James, Robyn Davidson, Christos Tsiolkas, Craig Sherborne, Kevin Brophy, Frank Devine, Barry Oakley, Jessica Anderson, Alan Frost, Gary Hughes, Christine Kenneally, JM Coetzee, Simon Leys, Anna Goldsworthy, Brenda Walker, Anne Manne, Shane Maloney, Noel Pearson, Tim Flannery, Robert Manne, Richard Flanagan, Gay Alcorn, Mark Riley, Nicolas Rothwell, Robert Dessaix, Anna Krien, Tim Winton, Kate Jennings, Benjamin Law and David Foster