'Stella Prize-shortlisted author Kris Kneen examines their body through the lens of art and burlesque in this gorgeous, intimate story of fatness, beauty and self-knowledge.
'How does a person come to know that they are different from the children around them? To measure themselves against a set normal and find themselves lacking?
'When did I know that I was plump, and then fat?
'Fat child, self-denying adolescent, hungry young woman; a body now burgeoning uncontrolled into middle age. Kris Kneen has borne the usual indignities—the confrontations with clothes that won't fasten, with mirrors that defame, with strangers whose gaze judges and dismisses. This is the story of how Kris learned to look unblinkingly at their recalcitrant body, and ultimately found the courage to carry it to freedom.
'Fat Girl Dancing is a frank, beautiful and triumphant ode to self-respect from one of Australia's most original and acclaimed writers.' (Publication summary)
'An achingly honest memoir of otherness, queerness and embodied becoming.'
'When I was a child, the water was a place of freedom. I remember throwing my body around with abandon, revelling in the joy of handstand competitions and long games of mermaids or lifeguards with my sister and cousins.' (Publication summary)
(Introduction)
'In previous memoirs, Brisbane-based writer Kris Kneen has examined their life through the lens of their sexuality (Affection, 2009) and their family history (The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen, 2021). In Fat Girl Dancing, Kneen’s lens is their body, specifically the body of a ‘short, fat, ageing woman’.' (Introduction)
'In previous memoirs, Brisbane-based writer Kris Kneen has examined their life through the lens of their sexuality (Affection, 2009) and their family history (The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen, 2021). In Fat Girl Dancing, Kneen’s lens is their body, specifically the body of a ‘short, fat, ageing woman’.' (Introduction)
(Introduction)
'When I was a child, the water was a place of freedom. I remember throwing my body around with abandon, revelling in the joy of handstand competitions and long games of mermaids or lifeguards with my sister and cousins.' (Publication summary)
