Meanjin Vol 79, No 4

In December’s 80th birthday edition of Meanjin, writers address the edition’s theme- The Next 80 Years.

The issue opens with reflective contributions from all of Meanjin’s living past editors …

Tara June Winch and Behrouz Boochani offer a conversational meditation on time and the very notion of a future.

Bruce Pascoe writes on the strange relationship non-Indigenous Australians have with trees, and wonders when we will realise that the forest is a friend.

Jennifer Mills encounters … herselves … in a future archive.

Peter Doherty sees a future world of worries-many of them viral-but settles on hope and the necessity of individual responsibility.

Jess Hill wonders whether existing models of policing are fit for purpose in countering domestic abuse.

Michael Mohammed Ahmad writes on whiteness and the idea of ‘real Australians’.

Jane Rawson looks at dramatic changes in Australian nature and wonders ‘who belongs here?’

Raimond Gaita writes on the moral challenges that have been presented by Covid19 and the challenge to our future presented by Black Lives Matter and the quest for Indigenous sovereignty.

Other essays by Bernard Keane, Justine Hyde, Glyn Davis, Karen Wyld, Alice Bishop and Paul Collis, Tim Dunlop, Toby Miller, Nicola Redhouse.

Fiction from Tara Moss, Julie Koh, Ben Walter and Kasumi Borczyk.

Memoir from Eda Gunaydin, Mark Pesce and Jennifer Mills.

Poetry from Jill Jones, Andrew Taylor, Boey Kim Cheng, Eileen Chong and more.