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.

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..

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

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...

“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 pa...

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.

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!

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,

"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 pa...

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

I really enjoyed this anthology of fictional stories on Australia’s past, present and future by indigenous writers and writers of colour.A note of praise on the cover describes After Australia as challenging and enthralling in equal measure, and I couldn’t agree more. It’s just the sort of challenging read that all Australians should lean into. To borrow from author Ambelin Kwaymullina, let’s stop asking what and start asking how.

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 the...

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 potential...

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, pande...

Scintillating, diverse, fabulous. An anthology of twelve stories by Australian Indigenous authors and Australian authors of colour. They are all worth your time -my favourite is 'We Live on in Story' by Karen Wyld, which works through a terrible and devastating family history, to rediscovery and re-connection to story and deep rooted belonging to country.

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 i...

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

Well written short stories by a diverse range of writers.

September 2020, no. 424 Declan Fry reviews After Australia edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmadhttps://www.australianbookreview.com....Acknowledging the limits of Acknowledgments of Country, the Wiradjuri artist Jazz Money once wrote:whitefellas try to acknowledge thingsbut they do it wrongthey say before we begin I’d like to pay my respectsnot understandingthat there isn’t a time before it beginsit has all already begunThe sentiment is salutary for an anthology like After Australia, in which severa...

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 contri...