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y separately published work icon Dark Matters single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Dark Matters
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'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.' (Synopsis)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Mission Beach, Mission Beach area, Cardwell - Tully - Innisfail area, Ingham - Cairns area, Queensland,: Spinifex Press , 2017 .
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      Extent: 188p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 1st August 2017

      ISBN: 9781925581089

Works about this Work

Writing Backwards : Susan Hawthorne's Dark Matters Lucy Alexander , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Verity La , July 2019;

— Review of Dark Matters Susan Hawthorne , 2017 single work novel
Mel O’Connor Reviews Dark Matters by Susan Hawthorne Mel O’Connor , 2019 single work
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , March no. 23 2019;

— Review of Dark Matters Susan Hawthorne , 2017 single work novel

'In counterpoint to how these histories have been silenced and extinguished, Susan Hawthorne, in Dark Matters, testifies to the horrifying reality of abduction and torture of lesbians—especially outspoken activist lesbians, such as Kate, the central character of the text.' (Introduction)

Review of Susan Hawthorne’s Dark Matters, Spinifex Press, 2017 Sue Woolfe , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Live Encounters , March 2018;

— Review of Dark Matters Susan Hawthorne , 2017 single work novel
Review Short : Susan Hawthorn’s Dark Matters Hayley Singer , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 May no. 86 2018;

'Susan Hawthorn’s Dark Matters is a culmination of over thirty years’ lesbian feminist activism and fifteen years’ research focused on violence – specifically torture – against lesbians in a global context. Hawthorn’s embodied experience and creative-intellectual rigour bring politics and poetics, desires and denials, silences and protests, bodies and implements of torture, intimate meditations and research expeditions, productive rage, testimony, speculative fiction and ficto-criticism together in a single novel.'  (Introduction)

A World of Inner and Outer Captivity : Suzanne Bellamy Launches ‘Dark Matters’ by Susan Hawthorne Suzanne Bellamy , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , October 2017 - March no. 24 2018;

'My friendship with Susan Hawthorne, writer and publisher at Spinifex Press – the author being celebrated here tonight at Muse – stretches back over decades now. I can assure you that we have done a great deal of hilarious laughing over those years, and I am emphasizing that humour at the outset because the subject matter of Susan’s novel isn’t funny, it’s confronting, which is a little tough on the person doing the launch. Susan’s novel is deeply involved in the dark matters of torture, but I remind you at the start that this is creative writing, this is the creation of a textual art space, this is the business of the artist, to take the reader to hard places and bring them out again. This is not torture, this is art practice, a novel of exploration of dark matter.'(Introduction)

Mel O’Connor Reviews Dark Matters by Susan Hawthorne Mel O’Connor , 2019 single work
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , March no. 23 2019;

— Review of Dark Matters Susan Hawthorne , 2017 single work novel

'In counterpoint to how these histories have been silenced and extinguished, Susan Hawthorne, in Dark Matters, testifies to the horrifying reality of abduction and torture of lesbians—especially outspoken activist lesbians, such as Kate, the central character of the text.' (Introduction)

Writing Backwards : Susan Hawthorne's Dark Matters Lucy Alexander , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Verity La , July 2019;

— Review of Dark Matters Susan Hawthorne , 2017 single work novel
Review of Susan Hawthorne’s Dark Matters, Spinifex Press, 2017 Sue Woolfe , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Live Encounters , March 2018;

— Review of Dark Matters Susan Hawthorne , 2017 single work novel
A World of Inner and Outer Captivity : Suzanne Bellamy Launches ‘Dark Matters’ by Susan Hawthorne Suzanne Bellamy , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , October 2017 - March no. 24 2018;

'My friendship with Susan Hawthorne, writer and publisher at Spinifex Press – the author being celebrated here tonight at Muse – stretches back over decades now. I can assure you that we have done a great deal of hilarious laughing over those years, and I am emphasizing that humour at the outset because the subject matter of Susan’s novel isn’t funny, it’s confronting, which is a little tough on the person doing the launch. Susan’s novel is deeply involved in the dark matters of torture, but I remind you at the start that this is creative writing, this is the creation of a textual art space, this is the business of the artist, to take the reader to hard places and bring them out again. This is not torture, this is art practice, a novel of exploration of dark matter.'(Introduction)

Review Short : Susan Hawthorn’s Dark Matters Hayley Singer , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 May no. 86 2018;

'Susan Hawthorn’s Dark Matters is a culmination of over thirty years’ lesbian feminist activism and fifteen years’ research focused on violence – specifically torture – against lesbians in a global context. Hawthorn’s embodied experience and creative-intellectual rigour bring politics and poetics, desires and denials, silences and protests, bodies and implements of torture, intimate meditations and research expeditions, productive rage, testimony, speculative fiction and ficto-criticism together in a single novel.'  (Introduction)

Launch : Susan Hawthorne's Dark Matters Marion Campbell , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Communion Literary Magazine , December no. 8 2017;
Last amended 13 Aug 2018 16:16:15
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