'Sparked by the description of a 'Malay trollope' in W. Somerset Maugham's story, The Four Dutchmen, Mirandi Riwoe's novella, The Fish Girl tells of an Indonesian girl whose life is changed irrevocably when she moves from a small fishing village to work in the house of a Dutch merchant. There she finds both hardship and tenderness as her traditional past and colonial present collide.
'Told with an exquisitely restrained voice and coloured with lush description, this moving book will stay with you long after the last page.' (Publication summary)
Dedication: For Ellen, woman of my heart
Epigraph: One of these days he would buy himself a house on the hills in Java and marry a pretty little Javanese. They were so small and so gentle and they made no noise, and he would dress her in silk sarongs and give her gold chains to wear round her neck and gold bangles to put on her arms. - W. Somerset Mauhgam, The Four Dutchmen
Mirandi Riwoe
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2020
19326758
2020
single work
podcast
interview
'Mirandi Riwoe is the author of 2020's Stone Sky Gold Mountain, as well as the novella The Fish Girl, which won Seizure’s Viva la Novella V and was shortlisted for The Stella Prize and the Queensland Literary Award’s UQ Fiction Prize.
'Mirandi also publishes under the name M.J. Tjia, and she is the woman behind the Heloise Chancey historical crime series She Be Damned, A Necessary Murder and The Death of Me.
'Her work features in Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, Review of Australian Fiction, Griffith Reviewand Best Summer Stories.'
Source: The Garret.
'SOMERSET Maugham (1874-1965) was a successful British playwright, novelist, short-story writer and travel writer, whose writings were often closely linked with his travel experiences and the stories he heard in the course of his far-ranging journeys.
'Mirandi Riwoe, on the other hand, is a Brisbane born and based writer of IndoChinese and Irish-English-Australian parentage whose novella, The Fish Girl (2017), was shortlisted for the Stella Prize in 2018.' (Introduction)
'Six years ago, The Stella Prize burst onto the Australian literary scene with an air of urgency. The A$50,000 award was the progeny of the Stella Count – a campaign highlighting the under-representation of women authors in book reviews and awards lists. In the years since, the prize has challenged the gendered ways in which we think about “significance” and “seriousness” in literature.' (Introduction)
'Mirandi Riwoe is shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize. In this special Stella interview, Mirandi shares her favourite contemporary Australian female writers, and the background to – and inspiration for – her novella, The Fish Girl.' (Introduction)
'Western Australia is experiencing a literary purple patch at the moment and Lois Murphy’s debut novel, Soon (Transit Lounge, 288pp, $29.99), is further evidence of this. Murphy, who lives in Melbourne now, spent six years travelling Australia in a homemade four-wheel-drive truck, and this novel about the stubborn last residents of an abandoned town is loosely based on the fate of Wittenoom, infamous as the site of Australia’s largest asbestos mine.' (Introduction)
'Mirandi Riwoe is shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize. In this special Stella interview, Mirandi shares her favourite contemporary Australian female writers, and the background to – and inspiration for – her novella, The Fish Girl.' (Introduction)
'Six years ago, The Stella Prize burst onto the Australian literary scene with an air of urgency. The A$50,000 award was the progeny of the Stella Count – a campaign highlighting the under-representation of women authors in book reviews and awards lists. In the years since, the prize has challenged the gendered ways in which we think about “significance” and “seriousness” in literature.' (Introduction)
'SOMERSET Maugham (1874-1965) was a successful British playwright, novelist, short-story writer and travel writer, whose writings were often closely linked with his travel experiences and the stories he heard in the course of his far-ranging journeys.
'Mirandi Riwoe, on the other hand, is a Brisbane born and based writer of IndoChinese and Irish-English-Australian parentage whose novella, The Fish Girl (2017), was shortlisted for the Stella Prize in 2018.' (Introduction)
Mirandi Riwoe
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2020
19326758
2020
single work
podcast
interview
'Mirandi Riwoe is the author of 2020's Stone Sky Gold Mountain, as well as the novella The Fish Girl, which won Seizure’s Viva la Novella V and was shortlisted for The Stella Prize and the Queensland Literary Award’s UQ Fiction Prize.
'Mirandi also publishes under the name M.J. Tjia, and she is the woman behind the Heloise Chancey historical crime series She Be Damned, A Necessary Murder and The Death of Me.
'Her work features in Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, Review of Australian Fiction, Griffith Reviewand Best Summer Stories.'
Source: The Garret.
