Griffith Review 39
February 2013
Text Publishing
Many of us living on the mainland now look south with envy to the Apple Isle – what with its plethora of gourmet foods, superb wines, untouched wilderness areas and the odd eccentric gambler throwing a party for the State economy, Tassie is the new black. Always astute in its judgement of Australia’s shifting social and political terrain, the latest edition of Griffith Review sees a joint venture with the University of Tasmania, together asking if all this adds up to a tipping point being reached, or whether there remains an underlying resistance to change, tied up with poor education outcomes, ill health and ingrained disadvantage. Is the splendid isolation over, or does that remoteness now have new uses? How is the long, cruel history of Tasmania coming to terms with its bright new 21st century? An array of researchers, writers, essayists and memoirists – all of them Tasmanians of one stripe or another – attempt to answer these questions. Clichés are examined, then (mostly) over-turned, while there are revelations aplenty. With contributions from, to name but a few, Cassandra Pybus, Favel Parrett, David Walsh, Erin O’Dwyer, Jonathon West and Danielle Wood, expect to be challenged and entertained.