The Tamarind Is Always Sour single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 The Tamarind Is Always Sour
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'If you crouch and hug your knees to your chest, and feel the skin of a man’s arm peeling against your own, and the sweat collecting on your nose drips onto the back of another man hunched over in front of you; if slices of light sift through the wooden slats a foot above your head, and your stomach feels like it is grinding stones, your throat clenches against swallowing each waft of urine and vomit, and the sting from a gash torn through your thigh by a rubber gear belt swung at you like a mace burns like the entire limb is being ripped off, like the chilli powder a filthy hand ground into your eyes; if you and the hundreds in the hold with you have been like this for twenty days, the gentle but maddeningly off-beat rocking of the sea pierced only by the occasional screams of women above deck, and you don’t know when it will end, and even when it ends you don’t know how every day after that will end, if you will be in bed with your wife or in jail, as confined to a cell as you were to the village your grandparents built a thousand miles from here, where you had a house but no quarter, land but no country, time but no future; if you do not exist on paper, anywhere, if no one will take you in, and you are drifting, always, then you know what that means. You know the tamarind is always sour.' (53)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Best Australian Essays 2017 Anna Goldsworthy (editor), Carlton : Black Inc. , 2017 11466492 2017 anthology essay

    'The Best Australian Essays showcase the nation’s most eloquent, insightful and urgent non-fiction writing. In her first time as editor, award-winning author Anna Goldsworthy chooses brilliant pieces that provoke, unveil, engage and enlighten, and get to the heart of what’s really happening in Australia and the world.' (Publication summary)

    Carlton : Black Inc. , 2017
    pg. 53-74
Last amended 12 Apr 2018 09:57:01
53-74 The Tamarind Is Always Soursmall AustLit logo
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X