In a dawn raid, Ekaterina is arrested. She is imprisoned, beaten, kept awake and tortured. She has no idea what has happened to her partner, Mercedes. The uncertainty plagues her. It is as if she has no history. Trying to retain her sense of self in swirling psychic state, she invents stories. And she remembers stories of her mother, her grandmothers and aunts, the rich mythic traditions of Greece. She rearranges them writes poems in her head. Thirty years later, her niece Desi is going through Kate's papers after her death trying to make sense of her aunts life. Susan Hawthorne's dark story uncovers hidden history of organised violence. She traces fear and uncertainty, and finds a narrative of resilience created through the writing of poems. The author asks: how do we pass on stories hidden by shame and resistance to shame? A novel that is both poetic and terrifying.
In a dawn raid, Ekaterina is arrested. She is imprisoned, beaten, kept awake and tortured. She has no idea what has happened to her partner, Mercedes. The uncertainty plagues her. It is as if she has no history. Trying to retain her sense of self in swirling psychic state, she invents stories. And she remembers stories of her mother, her grandmothers and aunts, the rich mythic traditions of Greece. She rearranges them writes poems in her head. Thirty years later, her niece Desi is going through Kate's papers after her death trying to make sense of her aunts life. Susan Hawthorne's dark story uncovers hidden history of organised violence. She traces fear and uncertainty, and finds a narrative of resilience created through the writing of poems. The author asks: how do we pass on stories hidden by shame and resistance to shame? A novel that is both poetic and terrifying.
Susan Hawthorne is an award-winning writer of fiction and poetry. Her woks include a novel, 'The Falling Woman' (1992), 'Limen', a verse novel (2013) and poetry collections 'Lupa and Lamb' (2014), 'Cow' (2011), 'Earth's Breath' (2009) and 'The Butterfly |Effect' (2005) among others. She has been the recipient of international residences in Rome and Chennai, had her worked played on ABC's Poetica and been included in a number of Best of anthologies. She has translated literary works from Sanskrit, Greek and Latin and her books and poems have been translated into Arabic, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Indonesian.
"Dark Matters is a magnificent book which I am deeply honoured to be launching." Marion May Campbell, launching the book at Collected Works, Swanston St, Melbourne
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