Water single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 2014... 2014 Water
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Heat and Light Ellen van Neerven , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2014 7667260 2014 selected work short story fantasy (taught in 1 units)

    'In this award-winning work of fiction, Ellen van Neerven takes her readers on a journey that is mythical, mystical and still achingly real.'

    'Over three parts, she takes traditional storytelling and gives it a unique, contemporary twist. In ‘Heat’, we meet several generations of the Kresinger family and the legacy left by the mysterious Pearl. In ‘Water’, a futuristic world is imagined and the fate of a people threatened. In ‘Light’, familial ties are challenged and characters are caught between a desire for freedom and a sense of belonging.'

    'Heat and Light presents an intriguing collection while heralding the arrival of an exciting new talent in Australian writing.' (Publication summary)

    St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2014
    pg. 67-124
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon This All Come Back Now Mykaela Saunders (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2022 23603716 2022 anthology short story science fiction fantasy

    'A world-first collection of blackfella speculative fiction from well-known and emerging First Nations writers. The first-ever anthology of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speculative fiction – written, curated, edited and designed by blackfellas, for blackfellas and about blackfellas. In these stories, some writers are summoning ancestral spirits from the past, while others are looking straight down the barrel of potential futures, which always end up curving back around to hold us up from behind. Dazzling, imaginative and unsettling, This All Come Back Now centres and celebrates communities, cultures and country.' (Publication summary)

    St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2022
    pg. 221-246
    Note: Editor's note: The modified version shown here is extracted from the original text.

Works about this Work

Contact, Rationalism, and Indigenous Queer Natures in Ellen Van Neerven's "Water" Arlie Alizzi , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Routledge Handbook of Cofuturisms 2023; (p. 45-54)
Introduction Always Australian, Often Female, and Sometimes Queer : Gender and Sexuality in Australian Speculative Fiction Bettina Charlotte Burger , David Kern , Lucas Mattila , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Gender Forum , no. 81 2023; (p. 3-8)
Decolonising Categories : Learning from “Water” by Ellen Van Neerven Mylène Charon , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , 10 August vol. 23 no. 1 2023;

'This essay offers a study of Yugambeh writer Ellen van Neerven’s short story “Water”. It will look at its creative use of a group of futuristic characters, who turn out to be Indigenous ancestral spirits. How do their long-debated identity question all sorts of categories, making them appear as socially-constructed and highlighting their material effects? Traits pertaining to the bildungsroman will be elucidated through an analysis of the main character whose quest for her Aboriginal identity finds an auxiliary in the spirits’ leader and an opponent in a representative of the government. The story unfolds as a political one of becoming-as-resistant against the latest form of segregation conducted in the name of national reconciliation. Drawing on the past, reflecting the present and imagining the future, at the intersection of Western and Indigenous worldviews, it challenges the literary genres and definitions of the real and the fiction. In its imagination of Indigenous futures, navigating between epistemologies, it may be called a work of Murri realism which draws a set of parallels to reflect on current postcolonising conditions.' (Publication abstract)

Decolonising Categories : Learning from “Water” by Ellen Van Neerven Mylène Charon , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , 10 August vol. 23 no. 1 2023;

'This essay offers a study of Yugambeh writer Ellen van Neerven’s short story “Water”. It will look at its creative use of a group of futuristic characters, who turn out to be Indigenous ancestral spirits. How do their long-debated identity question all sorts of categories, making them appear as socially-constructed and highlighting their material effects? Traits pertaining to the bildungsroman will be elucidated through an analysis of the main character whose quest for her Aboriginal identity finds an auxiliary in the spirits’ leader and an opponent in a representative of the government. The story unfolds as a political one of becoming-as-resistant against the latest form of segregation conducted in the name of national reconciliation. Drawing on the past, reflecting the present and imagining the future, at the intersection of Western and Indigenous worldviews, it challenges the literary genres and definitions of the real and the fiction. In its imagination of Indigenous futures, navigating between epistemologies, it may be called a work of Murri realism which draws a set of parallels to reflect on current postcolonising conditions.' (Publication abstract)

Introduction Always Australian, Often Female, and Sometimes Queer : Gender and Sexuality in Australian Speculative Fiction Bettina Charlotte Burger , David Kern , Lucas Mattila , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Gender Forum , no. 81 2023; (p. 3-8)
Contact, Rationalism, and Indigenous Queer Natures in Ellen Van Neerven's "Water" Arlie Alizzi , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Routledge Handbook of Cofuturisms 2023; (p. 45-54)
Last amended 21 Aug 2024 20:38:02
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