Culture

  • Bali - beyond the bazaar

    Under the Volcano: the story of Bali
    By Cameron Forbes
    Black Inc., 2007
    286 pages, $32.90 (pb)

  • Pakistan — A Thousand Steps From Freedom

    A thousand steps
    Away from the ballot box
    To vote for freedom

    A thousand steps
    From armed men
    With orders to shoot down
    Anyone who votes for freedom

    A thousand steps
    When you have chains
    On your hands and feet
    To stop you from taking
    A step of a single yard
    Towards freedom

    A thousand steps
    From the grave
    Where you will be buried
    If you take a step
    To vote for freedom

    A thousand steps
    From your dreams
    Where you dream
    That you can vote
    For freedom


    @auth poem = Arif Viqar

  • Norman Mailer and the 'good war'

    The media memorialised Norman Mailer after his death on November 10 with accolades about his stature as a literary giant, two Pulitzer Prizes, larger-than-life celebrity persona and reputation as an egotistical curmudgeon. But the substance of his ideas and his life beyond the image and the awards got little attention.

  • On the Box

    21 Up South Africa — 21 Up South Africa offers insights into the social and political changes occurring throughout the country since the fall of Apartheid. SBS, Sunday, December 2, 9.25pm. Gough Whitlam: In His Own Words — Examines Whitlam's

  • Down and out in Tent City

    Down to This: A Year Living with the Homeless
    By Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
    University of Queensland Press, 2007
    475 pp, $32.95 (pb)

  • On the box

    Cuba: An African Odyssey — From Che Guevara's military campaign to avenge Lumumba in the Congo, up to the fall of apartheid in South Africa, 300,000 Cubans fought alongside African revolutionaries. SBS, Friday, November 23, 2.30pm. Heaven On

  • Iraq: out now!

    Iraq — The Logic of Withdrawal
    By Anthony Arnove
    The New Press, 2007
    178 pages, $26.00 (pb)

  • On the box

    Becoming Julia — An unflinching look at what makes a man and what makes a woman, with all stereotypes turned on their head. SBS, Saturday, November 17, 1.20am. Message Stick: Kokoda Dreaming — The Wanga Idingii project is an early intervention

  • Violeta Parra - mother of the New Chilean Song Movement

    Chile, that thin strip of land lulled to sleep by the Pacific and the Andes, has given birth to many people that have left their mark in the hearts of millions all across the planet: the Nobel Prize winners Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, the amazing composer Victor Jara, tortured and assassinated by Pinochet, our comrade Salvador Allende — and one of the greatest exponents of Chilean music, Violeta Parra.