“Continent Aflame: Responses to an Australian Catastrophe” assembles multiple responses to the Australian bushfires crisis of 2019–20. The moral imperative generated by the damaged continent, the unprecedented scale of the disaster, compels this response.

Contributors demonstrate that the continent is aflame, both literally and figuratively. Indigenous and non-Indigenous scientists, artists, doctors, ecologists, writers and many others are “aflame”, in despair, anger and hope.

The book aims to help generate a resolve that comes out of these multiple reactions and which can lead to intense new possibilities.

Contributors include Bruce Pascoe, Susan Norrie, Bill Gammage, Alexis Wright, Ross Gittins, Freya Mathews, Philipa Rothfield, Arnold Zable, Thomas Keneally, Ian Kerridge, Kate Judith, Raimond Gaita, John Funder, Helen Szoke, Stephen Duckett, George Browning, Helen Caldicott, Paul Valent, Mark Beeson, Maithri Goonetilleke, Ross Garnaut, Will Steffen, Lorraine Shannon, Paul Carter, Lionel Bopage, Guy Rundle, Jessica Weir, Catherine Larkins, Philip Freier, James Collett, Tom Griffiths, Vanessa Cavanagh, Stephen Muecke, Miranda Nation, Jane Fisher, Kieran Donaghue, Rimona Kedem, Hugo Muecke, Anne Elvey, and the editors.

Pat Anderson