Christopher Raja

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**The ABR Podcast**

Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.

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Episode #186

Soul blindness: Clerical narcissism and unfathomable cruelty

By Scott Stephens

In this week’s ABR Podcast, Scott Stephens reviews a book by Anne Manne: Crimes of the Crimes of the Cross: The Anglican paedophile network of Newcastle, its protectors and the man who fought for justice. Why is narcissism a central theme for a book about child sexual abuse? Stephens writes: ‘without the capacity or willingness to be attentive to the humanity of another person’, unfathomable cruelty becomes possible. Scott Stephens is the ABC’s Religion & Ethics online editor and the co-host, with Waleed Aly, of The Minefield on ABC Radio National. Listen to Scott Stephens’s ‘Soul blindness: Clerical narcissism and unfathomable cruelty’, published in the May issue of ABR.

Recent episodes:

Sunbirds by Mirandi Riwoe

by Christopher Raja •

January-February 2024, no. 461

Christopher Raja reviews ‘Sunbirds’ by Mirandi Riwoe

The potential for Australian literature to address the history of colonised people in this country and elsewhere is of great consequence. New perspectives not only rewrite history to include ‘herstory’, but also reconsider what we believe and broaden our view of ourselves as active contributors to our collective and individual past. A spate of recent books has attempted to do this: Anita Heiss’s Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams (2021) and Geraldine Brooks’s Horse (2022) are two that come to mind.

... (read more)

The Burning Elephant by Christopher Raja

by Fiona Dorrell •

May 2016, no. 381

Set during the lead-up to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, The Burning Elephant is coloured by political eruptions. Through the eyes of young Govinda, a story unfolds about discord within a marriage, sectarian violence, and the anticipation of a family preparing to emigrate to Australia.

...