(Publication abstract)
'Snake Island’s tone is established in the opening pages when a pelican gasping on the mudf lats is decapitated out of mercy. This uncompromising stance is sustained throughout as Ben Hobson delivers a novel drenched in blood. Darkly lit as though it were a chiaroscuro study of crime and punishment, Hobson’s second book explores generational abuse and retributive action. Violence indeed begets violence, spilling across the path of every unfortunate character.' (Introduction)
'Bangladeshi Australian author Samia Khatun’s Australianama is a book of books, a survey of divergent modes of historical storytelling, and a search for truth in the face of cultural erasure. It opens with Khatun visiting her mother, Eshrat, in a mental health ward in Sydney’s suburbs. Plagued with terrifying visions in Bengali, Eshrat is locked each night in a shared room with a uniformed Australian soldier – recently returned from Afghanistan – who she believes will murder her in her sleep. With the hospital refusing to relocate her mother, Khatun comprehends an irresolvable dissonance: “Western states cannot bomb, exploit, drone, invade and kill South Asians andhave us as part of their citizenry at the same time.” She laments, “The migrant story I had inhabited for much of my life buckled, and eventually collapsed.” This acts as the catalyst for Khatun’s expansive history of the South Asian diaspora in colonial Australia.' (Introduction)
