Semper Floreat is the University of Queensland Union's free & independent student newspaper.
[Originally published in the February Issue, 18th of February 2026] [SPOILER WARNING: Whalefall (Daniel Kraus), and The Employees (Olga Ravn)] In December of 2025, I read two books that, although were very different in terms of prose and genre, were quite similar in terms of one specific plot device: the main characters are trapped somewhere, and death is fast approaching. In Daniel Kraus’s 2023 novel Whalefall, this comes […]
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Don’t sleep at night! You’ll never know what might happen if you close your eyes. “Mr.Hugo has disappeared!” Screamed someone. Yes you could lose anything upon waking. Food stolen by rats, your partner taken by someone else. This isn’t quite the same. This is about Hugo, the one worshipped by his people. Many would cry, […]
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I am best friends with the bizarre. My favourite books are often the ones with a uniquely bonkers story, often complemented by an equally bonkers formatting style. I’ll be honest, I had no clue what to do for this edition’s Lit Corner, so I thought I’d make some short and sweet recommendations for some of […]
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They blame the immigrant law and sparking a cultural war Funny how the white immigrants called ‘We stand by Australian values and its core’ When the land was stolen, they have said nothing at all I guess they still think white man land is what Australia stands for Education is key but they have made it far from free Not […]
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I am a Bong girl. I am loud, bold, sensual, angry. I don’t tolerate injustice. I don’t bow down; I am not timid. I fight for all the right things. I have the spirit of a kshatriya, always at war, fighting for the right thing. There’s too much fire in our souls. We seek softness, warmth, […]
Continue Reading25th of March, 2025. It was a Tuesday morning, I was preparing to log onto my zoom lecture, I heard a ding. I checked my phone to see a text message. “Uncle Ismail was at Nasser hospital when they bombed it” It was from my mother. My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe. I started sobbing. […]
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Erasing Palestine – Rebecca Ruth Gould (2023) [Non-fiction] ‘Our silence is complicity. This complicity also silences Palestinians, keeping their experiences hidden from public view.’ Rebecca Ruth Gould’s Erasing Palestine is a well-researched exploration of free speech and the struggle for Palestinian freedom. Not only does it describe Gould’s experience in being accused of antisemitism for […]
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He came and left a rot inside her womb. She lay there naked curled around her blight that rotted till her famine would consume the ridges dug inside her skin that night. He told her he would build them both a home: A kitchen with a cross above the door. Then turned the bedroom to […]
Continue Reading‘ Burned leaf on the rubble cries EVACU language disintegrating Warnings from the Sky’ is a Senryu written in response to an image I saw of the remnants of an evacuation leaflet dropped by Isreal in Gaza. There was nowhere to evacuate to. The leaflet was torn by bombs from the very people that sent […]
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The following is an excerpt of a real journal entry I wrote in July, edited for publication and privacy. It is my attempt to word unspeakable violence, to mould the visceral with a vocabulary built for logic and softness. It is reflection, story, prose poetry, word vomit. I doomscrolled through videos of Gaza tonight and […]
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