What a place! Johnno would snarl. Brisbane was nothing: a city that blew neither hot nor cold, a place where nothing happened, and where nothing ever would happen, because it had no soul. People suffered here without significance. It was too mediocre even to be a province of hell. It would have defeated Baudelaire. A place where poetry could never occur.
—David Malouf, Johnno, 1975

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Remembering Johnno

Maxine McKew

Summer 2017

Embrace Australia’s finest writers

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Embrace Australia’s finest writers

Essays

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