Island Enigmas
Dirk Liesemer is a writing Wandervögel, an epistolary inheritor of the romantically-imagined movement that flourished in Germany between the late nineteenth century and 1933. The “wandering birds” took their inspiration from medieval myths, and made a cult of the outdoors and walking. Liesemer likewise revels in stories of improbable journeys, and follows ancient and overshadowed trails. His parents’ professions—his father a seafarer, his mother an antique dealer—seem almost to predestine him to antiquarian travellers’ tales. He has written on the November 1918 revolutionaries who triggered the German Revolution of 1918-19, and traced the tank-tracks of the 11th Panzer Division (nicknamed “the Ghost Division”) as it roared through the Ukraine during Barbarossa. He is presently writing Wanderings Through the Night, accounts of roaming under Germanic stars—slumbering Leipzig, Zurich’s sadly playing fountains, the snowy tips of the Allgäu.
In Phantom Islands,…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins