RaveReadings (AUS)If you’ve felt stuck in a reading slump of late, stop what you’re doing and pick up a copy of She Is Haunted ... the hype is warranted ... Clark introduces herself as a playful and inventive voice you don’t want to sleep on, and I’m already hanging out for whatever she writes next ... electrically original in both prose style and energy ... An absolute pleasure to read.
Fernanda Melchor, trans. by Sophie Hughes
RaveReadings (AUS)... a slim but no less powerful read ... provocative and terrifying ...Melchor’s feverish prose is fierce and all consuming, written in long sentences and paragraphs with a stream-of-consciousness orality that is intense to read, profane and often highly disturbing. The experience of reading this short book is both shocking and energising, but it’s worth noting that, while disconcerting, Melchor’s furious scrutiny of both misogyny and capitalism is never gratuitous. Here Melchor proves again how expertly she can tap into the human experience. With Paradais her story washes over the reader in a relentless torrent in way that feels wholly original and, ultimately, revelatory.
Adam Thompson
RaveReadings (AU)This remarkable debut crackles with wit, swagger and rage –- as entertaining and affecting as it is thought-provoking -– and assuredly introduces Aboriginal (pakana) writer Adam Thompson as a fresh new voice to follow in the Australian fiction landscape ... These 16 tight and punchy stories are distinctly Tasmanian ... Every encounter in this collection is charged with tension and energy; Thompson’s dialogue sparks on the page. Yet while the stories in Born Into This are all driven by their human conflicts, each protagonist’s relationship to their environment (both urban and natural) is deeply considered and fully realised. Thompson leaves the reader with a profound sense of what we’re losing when it comes to both the damage and disappearance of our native environment and the cultural practices that rely on its survival ... not only stands out as an engaging short-story collection from an exciting young writer, but will open readers’ minds to the diverse lived experiences of First Nations people. I hope we are all approaching the year ahead with a strengthened resolve to listen deeply and actively to First Nations Australians so that we may better advocate for justice and equality in this country. This is vital storytelling that we should all be reading, and I couldn’t recommend it more highly.
