After Australia by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

After Australia Reviews

• 
  Michael Livingston

  An exciting and innovative collection, with a diverse set of authors offering up their takes on After Australia. As a political project it's clearly successful, bringing together well known and emerging voices from migrant and Indigenous communities. As an artistic project, it's a triumph as well - the writing is sharp and bursting with ideas, the array of perspectives is dazzling and the whole book just feels utterly necessary. The shorts by Khalid Warsame and Omar Sakr were my favourites, but the whole collection is great.
• 
  Marchpane

  After Australia is a great little collection showcasing new writing talent, with all of the contributors being Indigenous or writers of colour. The pieces are not nearly as speculative as I had expected—most are contemporary, or what I’d prefer to call ‘predictive fiction’, extrapolating from our current trajectory into the very near future: sea level rise, displacement of refugees, killer flu etc.
  
  There’s a real diversity of backgrounds and experience among this writing cohort. I would have like a bit more stylistic variety though; about three-quarters of the contributions were from a first-person, young, urban perspective. Favourites for me were: Omar Sakr’s fierce, sharply drawn ‘White Flu’, Roanna Gonsalves’ gleeful alternate history, ‘The East Australia Company Mango Bridge’, Ambelin Kwaymullina’s ethereal time-travelling poem ‘Message from the Ngurra Palya’.
  
• 
  Mohammed Morsi

  What happened? What will happen if we keep upholding a concept, a country called Australia, swooned by racism, denial and bigotry? Read this book and discover what this collection of great authors imagine, think and dream. Read it Australia. Read it. This is After Australia.
• 
  Bonnie Boogaard

  A really interest collection of short stories about alternate Australia's. Considering these would have been written before the bush fires, covid-19 and the black lives matter protests, these stories are very much predicting the future of Australia.
  
  I look forward to discovering more from these Australian writers!
• 
  Cass Moriarty

  The cover of After Australia (Affirm Press 2020) is impressively distinctive: an old-fashioned picture, similar to those found in the Ladybird children’s books, shows a (white) nuclear family, but each of the faces has been scribbled over. It’s an image that is difficult to forget, and which suits this collection perfectly. In After Australia, edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad, 12 diverse writers of both Indigenous and POC backgrounds, imagine Australia at some time in the future, ‘after empire, after colony, after white supremacy…’. The result is a richly imagined collection that is sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, and often terrifying.
  Some of the themes covered include climate change, genocide, police brutality and black history, with the characters responding through love, hate, courage, hope or revenge. Writers include Hannah Donnelly, Khalid Warsame, Claire G. Coleman, Roanna Gonsalves, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Kaya Ortiz and Sarah Ross.
  This is a book that challenges our beliefs about politics, religion, class, race, the environment, culture and extremist hate groups. It ‘encourages us to ask important questions about who we are as a nation, how we got here, and where we are headed.’
  White Flu by Omar Sakr affected me in a visceral, raw and confronting way. His writing is bold and brave while also being vulnerable and thought-provoking. We Live On, In Story by Karen Wyld, is a highly literary piece in beautiful language. Michelle Law’s story feels so personal and intimate. Displaced, by Zoya Patel, depicts a changed landscape and an uncomfortable future. One of the stories, by Future D. Fidel, is titled ‘Your Skin is the Only Cloth You Cannot Wash’ and this seems to me to be a metaphor for the entire book: our skins are indeed all different and diverse, and there is nothing we can do to change that, and yet beneath that soft layer, we are all the same, we bleed, we love, we hate, we hope, we yearn. This is a diverse work of speculative fiction that explores many questions and challenges the reader to begin searching for answers.
  
• 
  Elie

  this anthology is pegged ‘after empire, after colony, after white supremacy…twelve diverse writers imagine an alternative Australia’. So tell me why, because I am clueless, an anthology *centred* on its diversity, it’s post-white supremacist stories, contains stories where a new virus is a jewish conspiracy? while not exclusive to white supremacy, as demonstrated in the story ‘white flu’, it is a main tenant of white supremacy that Jews create plagues to wipe out the ‘white’ population, and yet this anthology is supposedly post white supremacy. How can an anthology so focused on racism, perpetuate one of the most dangerous kinds? Tell me why are Holocaust comparisons necessary? Are writers lazy? Can they not clearly articulate themselves? The Holocaust is not a literary device to enact. A genocide is not something to enact as a measuring stick for catastrophe. I had such high hopes for this anthology, and was bitterly disappointed.
• 
  Rusalka

  This is a wonderful gathering of short stories discussing what Australia is and reimagining it in regards to race, climate, immigration, power, wealth, ethnicity, environment, etc. It's challenging and powerful.
  
  Written in 2019 and earlier, it is eerily prophetic. There is a story about a flu pandemic that takes out a certain part of the population. There's a story about how Sydney is so hot you can't go outside without protective clothing and the air is impossible to breathe. Both things happened in the summer of 2020.
  
  Other stories are scarily teetering on the edge of reality with stories of ethnicity, immigration, and climate change which are all on the knife edge of being science fiction and non-fiction. One story was based in my city of Canberra (which never features in lit) talking about my town and my environment dramatically changed by a few degrees, and people talking in buildings and spaces I know about those climate refugees and maybe heading back to some form of the White Australia Policy. It is terrifyingly close.
  
  Then there is a poem about an Indigenous space crew exploring the universe. Or a family history tied together through a tree on a property. Or a story of two enterprising girls in convict Australia. Or, or, or...
  
  Books like this are enjoyable and are not. But they are deeply important for us to challenge ourselves and our society, our assumptions and our ability to accept things as they are no matter how wrong we are. Books like this shake us up.
• 
  Dayle

  In all honesty, short stories are not my thing. I like the premise of this anthology, where diverse writers have come together to imagine an alternate Australia - one where maybe the white invaders left, or one that is struggling through after the climate crisis has passed its zenith. It is a mixture of fact and fiction. There were some interesting thoughts in here and I always found myself wanting more. Most of the short stories I would happily read a full novel of - I was teased with potentially exquisite world building but I don't like extrapolating. Give me all the information and let me be immersed in the story.
  The highlight for me was what was probably the longest story in the collection, which followed two women of colour living in Sydney/Eora nation who changed the course of colonial Australia through their access to a printing press.
  So it is hard for me to rate this, as my main misgivings are the short story nature and my inability to understand the full context of these alternate timelines, which is not the fault of the authors or editor. A fascinating collection of short stories, poetry, and personal reflections that showcase the diverse experiences and views often overlooked in this country.
• 
  Thoraiya

  A lullaby wind blows through generations by the scarred stump of a tree; mozzies breed in a flooded opera house; Indigenous Elders guide a starship; the White Flu strikes; goats populate Katoomba; a 55 inch screen fits in a lunch bag; the daughter of two mums makes a journey to the Taj Mahal; swallows migrate; citizenship is stripped; strange things are afoot on the Thunderbolts Way; islands sink into the Pacific; a dog swallows a bottle cap, and nothing is the same.
  
  I didn't mean to read all these stories in one sitting, but I did, and I'm glad, and I'm grateful, after savouring new stories by Karen Wyld, Claire G Coleman and Ambelin Kwaymullina, to have discovered the new (to me) talents of Hannah Donnelly, Future D Fidel, Roanna Gonsalves, Michelle Law, Kaya Ortiz, Zoya Patel, Sarah Ross, Omar Sakr and Khalid Warsame. I hope they'll stay working in the world of the speculative for a while, before heading back to the land of "serious" lit :)
• 
  Alison

  "In situations of oppression, it is often difficult to escape from, or think outside of, the reality of the present day and the burden of the past. But when one is taken outside of the context of the present, the possibilities for change can be immense. In imagining the future, a level of freedom and power is afforded to the imaginer. What seems impossible in the current time and place is made possible. Unlike the present, the future is not necessarily a battleground. Instead, the future is a palimpsest. It is a place where the past and present provide context, but do not dictate the path." - Lena Nahlous in the Afterward to After Australia.
  
  I can't say I'm surprised that given the brief of looking towards 2050, that the stories in this book are almost (thank you Amberlin Kwaymullina!) unanimously dystopian. This volume is striking both for what is different in the kinds of crises the writers imagine have deepened the most, and also in terms of what is depressingly similar. It is a fabulous showcase, however, of great speculative fiction.
  The stand out here for me was Khalid Warsame's List of Known Remedies, which tells a compelling taut story exploring where we are headed, friendship, racism, love and dogs. I'm wistfully hoping Warsame will bring something long-form out soon - his short fiction is outstanding.
  Michelle Law's Bu Liao Qing is also a stand-out, building a compelling world and telling a sadhopefulkickarse tale within it. Claire Coleman's Ostraka was every bit as hard-hitting, clever and polished as you would expect from Coleman. Omar Sakr gets the "most timely" prize for 'White Flu', that balances scary-accurate imaginings of a pandemic with a delicate family tale, which resists making the tough simple. Kwaymullina is hopeful and sublime and god this is hopefully a glimpse of a world she will write more in. Kaya Ortiz' poetry is a snapshot of what we are losing with mouthwatering grace. The story that has lingered with me the most, however, is Roanna Gonsalves The East Australia Company Mango Bridge which annoyed me because I wasn't sure what it was saying, and maybe that was the point because those immensely relatable characters and their couldabeenmaybewas Sydney Town will not get out of my head.
  Obviously, this was only just some of the stories - my favourites - and you will have others. The diversity of this collection alone makes it worth it.
• 
  Keit Mõisavald

  Bu Liao Qing stood out the most, Ostraka was also a very fascinating read out of this varied collection. Reading this during a 40degree heat wave definitely gives it some added flavour, not to mention the pandemic..
• 
  Jamie Hayward

  Honestly one of the most important and poignant books I've ever read. I can't wait to reread this one cause it hit so hard. Ahhh can't recommend it enough.
• 
  Amy Heap

  After Australia is a series of speculative short stories or poems, written by Indigenous writers and writers of colour. The concept is to imagine an alternate Australia, and they are set in the past, present and future. Particularly striking were Claire G. Coleman’s Ostraka, a bleak and totally believable near future, and Ambelin Kwaymullina’s Message from the Ngurra Palya, which reminded me of Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti series; hopeful and helpful. The stories are of racism, climate disaster, pandemic, and totalitarianism, and range in tone, style, and pace. It’s a thought-provoking, and ultimately hopeful collection.
• 
  Veronica Strachan

  So glad I heard about this anthology. Though short stories are not my fave, these tales of a reimagined past and future were fantastic, challenging, chilling and hopeful. Editor Michael Mohammed Ahmad, has brought together 12 brilliant and diverse writers of both Indigenous and POC backgrounds. Each story considered the theme After Australia, each brought a unique perspective. We need to read and listen to more of these voices that make you think differently. An Australia with these writers in its future is on the right track.
  A great read.
• 
  Lucy

  Hard to pick a favourite story from this anthology, but there are many I expect I'll return to again and again.
• 
  Deb Chapman

  Interesting concept and coincidentally brings me to the realm of speculative fiction (which I only learnt of as a genre recently, listening to Mykaela Saunders talking at Melbourne Writers Festival 2022 and buying her anthology This All Come Back Now) but I digress. I was keen to read this after hearing the panel on it hosted by editor Michael Mohammed Ahmad at an online Melb. Writers festival session during Covid (2019?) and then greatly enjoying Ahmad’s most recent book, The other half of me. So it turns. Love the unexpected directions my reading takes me, like going down the scrolling wormhole on my phone but infinitely more satisfying, and I dare say educational. Anyway back to some words about this collection. As with many anthologies it was inconsistent, some pieces better written and touching me more than others. Principle of speculating an a fictional Australia is fascinating but I didn’t think the execution as good as the concept. Some good pieces. Some stretching my imagination more than others. I think my fav piece was The East Australia Company Mango Bridge by Roanna Gonsalves as it worked in my mind on about 6 different levels, truly speculative!
• 
  Rebecca Fraser

  I loved the concept of this anthology: “After empire, after colony, after white supremacy…twelve diverse writers imagine an alternative Australia” - and the contents certainly didn’t disappoint. Featuring stories from skilled Indigenous writers and writers of colour, the reader is invited into a world of speculation and a journey towards the year 2050. Each writer has approached the central theme through their unique ideas and lens. The result - every story stand solidly on its own, while contributing holistically to the antho’s weight. While many of the stories left (and hit) their mark, if I had to choose a favourite, I’d run with 'White Flu' by Omar Sakr – skillful execution indeed! Australia, indeed the world, would benefit from more anthologies that showcase and celebrate diverse voices.
• 
  a*s*h

  I did not realise how close I was to finishing this book when i fell into a slump with it. I literally had two or three stories left but got stuck and it took me a month to finish this like 200-300 page book. So now all my enthusiasm and comments about it are dry and crusty. There was a very beautiful poem in there, I remember. A very touching and tragic family saga whose last lines made me tear up. A truly creative and inventive reimagining of Sydney through the eyes of an asian teenager. A raw but somehow also tender account of a gay Arab man dealing with the complicated relationship with his mother against the backdrop of “the white flu.” These stories stood out to me. But the acknowledgements also had this bit on the power of speculative fiction especially for writers of colour. When you’re occupied with the injustices of the present it can rob you of the drive to imagine that decolonized future. So I was really appreciative of this collection’s goal to forge that creative future.
• 
  Josephine Burks

  Well written short stories by a diverse range of writers.
• 
  Deborah Ideiosepius

  Short story collections hey? So hard to rate, there are always a couple you don't like at all but giving the whole collection one star is unfair to the good stories...
  
  You could choose to rate it as a collection that has a central theme (this would be a one star there also) or just not review them at all (I am always tempted, but then I wont remember them). So, here, I will mention the submissions and my opinions, then an overall statement at the end.
  
  #1 by Hannah Donnelly. Reads like an angry blog rant by a Karen; someone whinging about any 'white' bearing the 'Koori flag'. I suspect this very woke spewing of entitlement comes from an individual who is big on 'my truth' as opposed to 'the truth'. Is this angry rant meant to make us think? about what then? It just makes me think that racism works both ways and that if you are angry about something bad being done to you and your ancestors, don't you think it is a bit dumb to be nasty to anyone of a different skin colour who is trying to get the wrongs righted? Alleged theme missing.
  
  #2 by Karen Wyld. This was an excellent, vivid and fascinating story, evocatively and exceptionally well written, one of the ones that stopped me from giving the whole collection a one star. With a vague timeline that feels unfocused (but is that intentional? as the story concludes, I feel it might be), but comes together to tell a story of one of the many hidden massacres committed by early Australian settlers upon Indigenous tribes. An aspect of the lost generation and lost family roots, that, without spoilers, is an engrossing read. Alleged theme missing.
  
  #3 by Michelle Law. This is a dystopian story with a strong immigrant flavour and I was enjoying it THROUGHLY (finally, a story that read the 'future Australia brief) when it just... stopped. no ending. just no more writing. Was this a teaser for an actual book? A concept waiting to be fleshed out? If there is an actual book in the pipeline I ABSOLUTLY want to read it, but as a short story this was bitterly disappointing.
  
  #4 Omar Sakr. Not a bad story, the main character was well written. dystopian, or about today for that matter. Could be a commentary on The Pandemic, or any pandemic or... Well it could be anything. It is about a young Australian man from a Lebanese immigrant family, from whom he is slightly disenfranchised due to being gay, his relations with his mother and his family. Quite and quietly readable, nicely written and avoids cliches in favour of interesting introspection.
  
  #5 Hannah Donnelly. Again. Oh, great. Another ranty McRantpants about 'whites' 'using our flag'.
  On the third page we get an impassioned speech about "What sickness is this where ancestors wouldn't be thinking of the future and descendants would deny their plans?" AHEM look in the mirror perhaps, speaker. You have just told us a long story about parents who left a child with a smashed elbow for three days, feeding her unprescribed codeine, before taking her to a doctor (which is child abuse). They too will be ancestors...
  -All passion and fury, messed up ethics and confused message (if there even is one). This author could benefit from reasoning and logic classes. Alleged theme missing.
  
  #5 Zoya Patel. Finally, dystopia/future again. A future in which Australia is being overwhelmed with refugees as the sea levels rise. The narrator's family, from Fiji are refugees though narrator himself is a citizen. Australia is becoming more and more racist and he feels isolated and disenfranchised, the writing is infused with a wistfulness. I feel a better title for it than 'Displaced' which is the actual title, in my opinion, would be Anemoia. A new and invented word for a nostalgic sense of longing for a past you yourself have never lived. Since the narrator is entirely Australian and never lived with his family in Fiji.
  
  #6 Sarah Ross gives us an interesting biopic of Darwin and what it was like for same sex parents in the past. Complete with quotes from Pope John Paul and John Howard (seriously, how does anyone remember that nasty gnome fondly) about how terrible it is two allow two people to love each other if they have the wrong boy/girl bits... Sorry, my own little rant there. This was an excellent story, well written informative, diverse backgrounds coming together and an excellent description of life in the tropics.
  
  #7 Claire G. Coleman. A dystopian flavour that tastes a little bit like it is more of a commentary on Australian refugee policies. Well writing with almost complete anonymity for both the narrator and the timeline. When the government redefines citizenship appears to be the slant of it, which I found interesting.
  
  #8 Kaya Ortiz. Thirteen pages of poetry (?!?), very modern, point indeterminant, disguised as flow charts, shopping lists, dot points and multiple choices exams. Look, I tried. But it ended up being thirteen shades of nope for me.
  
  #9 Hannah Donnelly. A mercifully short story, mercifully quite well written, about someone being angry she got parking fines (which I can totally relate to), which when left unpaid, cost her even more (which I can't) and consequently hating on the establishment. 'Dad always said white people never paid the rent so why should I' *sigh* can I point out, that making Indigenous people out to be that dumb is a form of racism in itself? Alleged theme missing.
  
  #10 Khalid Warsame. An aimless yet entertaining story about a young man who is a bartender about to publish his first poetry collection. It is a people based story where the only real event appears to be a dog who swallows a bottle cap, but is enjoyable nonetheless. Alleged theme missing.
  
  #11 Roanna Gonsalves. 1814?!? in an alternative fantasy version of the colony of NSW (the name Australia was not used in the real world until 1827, I believe), a company called The East Australia Company was established by an Indian servant and an Indigenous leader. I think they used the roots of a mango tree to build an alternative version of the Sydney harbour bridge.
  Quirky.
  Very quirky.
  If fact it is so deep in quirk that it is hard to read and impossible to figure out what you are reading about (other than quirk) most of the time. Despite drowning in a sea of quirk it follows the theme of the collection and is kind of fascinating when you can figure out what you are reading.
  
  #12 Future D. Fidel. A very short story that was funny, entertaining and excellently written with a great punch line. No noticeable connection with the alleged theme of the book, but I didn't mind at all.
  
  #13 Ambelin Kwaymullina. Poetry from future Australia engaged in space time voyaging from/to present/us Australia. Racist, of course, but pretty good beat and flow of poetry. Meets the collection criteria and I enjoyed it.
  
  #14 Hannah Donnelly. No alternative Australia, not too heavy on the rant. Hannah had a dream about how a research project could have ended in an attempt to get on theme, but it is a pretty minor part of the writing.
  
  
  So this collection has a theme, or it is meant to. The book was on my shelf FOR it's theme: ''...imagine an alternative Australia" so I was thinking kind of a future fiction, sci-fi type theme and it doesn't really answer. I guess several of the authors did not get the memo, or maybe a few of them just sent whatever finished work in they had lying around - I did wonder that for a few of the writing pieces - and the editors did not get as many submissions as they hoped. That would also explain why there are SO MANY from the one author, Hannah Donnelly, none of which are on theme.
  
  
  In the afterword Lena Nahlous burbles excitedly about the concept of 'prospective futures' in the book, how they '...forge a new path...' and does her best to legitimise and validate the fact that a lot of the writings have nothing to de with the stated purpose of the collection. She is wearing serious blinkers if she thinks it does so.
  
  Lena also says, on page 262 "Speculative fiction has long been a site of resistance" and if I understand what she means by that I do agree; sci-fi and speculative fiction have always been a venue to explore 'what ifs' and to try and shine a light on social behaviour and attitudes that could be improved. Accent on the understanding and improvement, on the attempt to make society better though and I did not see this book doing that.
  
  Rather I would call this book often racist, randomly antisemitic, so woke it is practically a sleep disorder and not always a great reading experience. I am sure it is all very valuable in an arty way and I dare say there are literary boards who will just ADORE it. It is that kind of book.
  
  Finally. Disclaimer: If anyone is annoyed by my opinions, well, they are mine, feel free to argue, within reason. This review, like all my reviews is here mostly for my own use not because I have any axe to grind.
  
  On my comments about racism, Wikipedia has this to say about racism: "Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioural traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.[1][2][3] It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity."
  
  So, based on that, this poetry from page {239} in this book
  "Our crew
  Is mainly Indigenous
  because Indigenous minds
  are most adept..."
  
  Now replace 'Indigenous' with 'White'. Which is racist. That's right, both.
  
  Why does this bother me when I agree that Indigenous Australia has suffered horrendously and needs restitution? Because I disagree that anger and more racism is going to cure or heal anything, in every example that I can think of, everywhere around the world, this kind of tactic has made things worse.
  
  I do agree with Ghandi "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".
• 
  Elektra

  An amazing collection of short stories by amazing individuals. I loved every part of this book!
• 
  Anne Fenn

  An interesting selection of short stories and some poetry based on visions and views of life in the future. Written by Indigenous or Australians of Asian or Indian background. Not surprising then that’s some anger and powerful representations of feeling about life and society. Climate change is often an underlying theme, frightening. I got a lot out of these pieces, they pack a punch about our current weaknesses, omissions and blindness, they’re depressing, hopefully more galvanising for all of us.
• 
  Ellen

  A pleasantly passable assemblage of articles. Unusually for such an anthology, no stories really stuck out – although Hannah Donnelly is recurrently raging and wry.
• 
  Noah Melser

  I like the concept, but stories feel stuck in climate change and migration. Pertinent issues, but the telling of them struck more as a fairly tame and conventional approach to the subjects. For a book that attempts to look beyond the present Australia, most stories felt fairly reflective of it. Omar Sakr's story was the highlight. Looking for looser, more experimental work.
• 
  Sandy

  Brilliant - but the description does not tell you what this book is really about. The stories don't imagine a society after colonisation, or After Australia -they largely explore what has happened and could happen if we continue down this path of "Australia' held up by racism, dispossession and bigotry, tell how this could continue to affect our lives in future.
• 
  Final Draft

  After Australia
  I think there are a lot of ways you can approach a short story collection and After Australia absolutely hits all of these…
  Perhaps you’re looking for a way to discover new Australian writing and writers? Well, After Australia has a selection of twelve incredible Indigenous Writers and Writers of Colour including Ambellin Kwaymullina, Karen Wyld, Omar Sakr, Future D Fidel and Zoya Patel.
  Maybe you like reading a story in a single sitting? After Australia is like a moreish pack of mixed lollies that you promise yourself your only going to have one of but end up finishing way more than intended (with plenty of literary energy but no extra calories!)
  Or maybe you love writing around a theme that lets you explore ideas from different perspectives. Well After Australia promises to imagine an alternate Australia - after empire, after colony, after white supremacy.
  See After Australia is the book we’ve needed but perhaps didn’t know it. As we all try to come to grips with the impact of pandemic on our lives it is unavoidable that the structural imbalances in our society are tipping further against marginalised communities.
  After Australia seeks futures where these balances are challenged, inverted or perhaps simply upended as environmental destruction flips the game board.
  In a collection like this there’s simply so much to talk about. I’m going to hone in on one story to give you all an idea of what After Australia has on offer…
  Claire G Coleman’s Ostraka takes us into the searing heat of an isolated, remote compound. An individual waits against the chain-link fence in a seeming prison of inertia. Around the compound are others; pale skin turning a vivid, painful scarlet in the unforgiving heat.
  It is Australia’s near future and the government has enacted the Ostraka law. Hearkening back to classical Athenian democracy the Ostrakismos gives the body politic the power to ostracise citizens. But who is to be ostracised and why?!
  In Ostraka Claire does so much in a very short space. The pain and remoteness of ostracism is immediately apparent in the harsh environment, as is the purgatory of uncertainty as the lawyers line up periodically to give their clients next to no news.
  Ostraka complicates this narrative though as it shows us the Ostraka laws were seemingly built around the established precedent of offshore detention and individuals are buried under mountains of go nowhere paperwork.
  The callous inhumanity of the existing system of offshore and endless detention is highlighted simply by applying it to everyday people (and by everyday let’s just understand we mean white and middle class).
  So do we hate the increasingly authoritarian government that through mission creep might one day enact such laws? Or do we hate ourselves for being willfully blind as it happened to others, only to sit up when it happened to us? Maybe we should thank Claire G Coleman for showing us this vision, so that we might do something before it’s too late.
  And that’s just a sampling! After Australia is a mighty collection of twelve incredible Indigenous Writers and Writers of Colour, it’s been edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad who is the founding director of Sweatshop Western Sydney Writers Collective. It’s a book that’s able to look our historical moment square in the eye and it has a lot to say to Australia today...
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• 
  Nigel Pinkus

  A very engaging read by this white Australian about what it is like, not being white in Australia! ‘After Australia’ was a collection of stories about the future might be like and told by people of color living in white Australia. These author’s were many and varied~ some were black indigenous Australians, one had come from Fiji and there were authors who had come from South America and as far away as Cuban and the Middle East.
  
  There were stories that included a recent history of Australia such as: living with floods and bushfires in the world of climate change. Some of the stories also included violence and racism to people of color. There was a story about detention centers and the return of a White Australia policy. There was a wonderful story about a 'flu that killed only Anglo-whites. There was a black indigenous story about being displace from Fiji to Australia. Whilst another, was a story about living in a white dystopian Australia and that have left many people starving. Some of the writers included: Hannah Donnelly, Khalid Warsame, Claire G. Coleman, Roanna Gonsalves, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Kaya Ortiz and Sarah Ross.
  
  Personally, I was very moved by, 'Displaced' by Zoya Patel and 'Black Thoughts: Pemulwuy' by Hannah Donnelly. 'After Australia' was, at times, a dark, angry place and portrayed a powerful message about an oppressed future. The white government didn't care about multiculturalism. They had the police squad to maintain control (by force, if they had too) and the physical environment had deteriorated to the point that people were starving and many were left with a sense of hopelessness. Quite dire and quite good! 4 STARS.
• 
  Carly

  Strap in for a lot of climate crisis depictions!
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed the voices in this book, and some of the stories have really stuck with me.
  
  It was the kind of book that make me uncomfortable in the good/challenging kind of way. I’m not a huge fan of the genre, but the stories had fascinating foundations and I read it voraciously.