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The November issue of The Monthly hits newsstands today, and it’s packed with essays taking stock of where Australia finds itself as 2023 winds down.

In the aftermath of the Voice referendum, Daniel James and Don Watson traverse the result with two searing works of commentary.

After five years of interviews, months of research and many hours in the courts, Sarah Krasnostein has written a magisterial piece of long-form journalism on the sorry case of Adass school principal Malka Leifer. This is a pioneering story of abuse and institutional failure, and the relationship between our legal system and the understanding of trauma.

Elizabeth Finkel takes apart the much-touted theories that Covid-19 began its life with a leak from a lab, and lays out the scientific evidence with clarity, determination and no nonsense.

And Jonathan Green heads out to nature, standing among the tall trees to ask what comes after the end of native logging.

Plus there’s personal writing from Anna Goldsworthy and Trent Dalton, as well as the latest in cultural commentary, reviews and criticism.