image of person or book cover 261928227899500481.jpg
y separately published work icon After Darkness single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2014... 2014 After Darkness
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'It is early 1942 and Australia is in the midst of war.

'While working at a Japanese hospital in the pearling port of Broome, Dr Ibaraki is arrested as an enemy alien and sent to Loveday internment camp in a remote corner of South Australia. There, he learns to live among a group of men divided by culture and allegiance.

'As tensions at the isolated camp escalate, the doctor's long-held beliefs are thrown into question and he is forced to confront his dark past: the promise he made in Japan and its devastating consequences.' (From the publisher's website.)

Notes

  • Dedication: for Kris

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Crows Nest, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Allen and Unwin , 2014 .
      image of person or book cover 261928227899500481.jpg
      Extent: 304ppp.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 22 April 2014
      ISBN: 9781743319888

Other Formats

  • Large print.
  • Dyslexic edition.
  • Sound recording.

Works about this Work

Revisiting the Haunted Past : Christine Piper’s After Darkness Sue Kossew , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , May no. 61 2017;

'

A frequently-used metaphor in Australian national discourse is that of one or other ‘shameful’ or ‘dark’ chapter in our past. Alongside the notion of shame and guilt comes the idea of repressed and silenced memory, either through deliberate institutionalised forgetting or through the impossibility of fully articulating traumatic pasts. At the same time, as Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton suggest, ‘forms of remembering and commemoration have become the central contemporary mode through which various constituencies understand history, including the national past’ (371). This seemingly contradictory clash of a willed forgetfulness alongside a fascination with remembrance may account for the popularity in Australian literature of historical novels, a sub-set of which may be termed ‘sorry novels,’ and of literary works that may be regarded as participating in a process of what Tessa Morris-Suzuki and others in East Asia Beyond the History Wars: Confronting the Ghosts of Violence (2013) term ‘reconciliation as method’. This concept is defined ‘not as an end-point in which consensus on history is achieved, but rather as sets of media, skills and processes that encourage the creative sharing of ideas and understandings about the past’ (13). The focus on ‘creative sharing’ suggests that such texts may participate in uncovering ‘unfinished business’ and in this way contribute to debates about understandings of the past. At the very least, the concept of ‘reconciliation as method’ prompts us to consider how literary narratives (among other forms of cultural texts) provoke questions of historical responsibility.' (introduction)

Book Review – After Darkness by Christine Piper Joanne Peulen , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Booklover Book Reviews 2014;

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel
Readers' Life : What You're Reading Rachel Freeman , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Good Reading , August 2014; (p. 72)

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel
Chequered Past Laurie Steed , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 364 2014; (p. 49)

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel
Well Read Katharine England , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 5 July 2014; (p. 25)

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel ; A Most Peculiar Act Marie Munkara , 2014 single work novel
At War with His Emotions Geordie Williamson , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 3-4 May 2014; (p. 18)

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel
The Dark Days of Wartime Racism that Reverberate Today David Messer , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 7-8 June 2014; (p. 36-37) The Age , 7 June 2014; (p. 30)

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel
Amid War's Horrors, A Doctor Faces Choices Alison Broinowski , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 7 June 2014; (p. 21)

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel
Book Review: After Darkness by Christine Piper Rachel Freeman , 2014 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The NSW Writers' Centre Blog

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel
Well Read Katharine England , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 5 July 2014; (p. 25)

— Review of After Darkness Christine Piper , 2014 single work novel ; A Most Peculiar Act Marie Munkara , 2014 single work novel
Lifting the Lid on Plight of Wartime Interns Author's Own Life Helps Make a Winner Susan Wyndham , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 23 April 2014; (p. 14-15) The Age , 23 April 2014; (p. 12)
After Darkness Comes the Literary Dawning Matthew Westwood , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian , 23 April 2014; (p. 5)
Revisiting the Haunted Past : Christine Piper’s After Darkness Sue Kossew , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , May no. 61 2017;

'

A frequently-used metaphor in Australian national discourse is that of one or other ‘shameful’ or ‘dark’ chapter in our past. Alongside the notion of shame and guilt comes the idea of repressed and silenced memory, either through deliberate institutionalised forgetting or through the impossibility of fully articulating traumatic pasts. At the same time, as Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton suggest, ‘forms of remembering and commemoration have become the central contemporary mode through which various constituencies understand history, including the national past’ (371). This seemingly contradictory clash of a willed forgetfulness alongside a fascination with remembrance may account for the popularity in Australian literature of historical novels, a sub-set of which may be termed ‘sorry novels,’ and of literary works that may be regarded as participating in a process of what Tessa Morris-Suzuki and others in East Asia Beyond the History Wars: Confronting the Ghosts of Violence (2013) term ‘reconciliation as method’. This concept is defined ‘not as an end-point in which consensus on history is achieved, but rather as sets of media, skills and processes that encourage the creative sharing of ideas and understandings about the past’ (13). The focus on ‘creative sharing’ suggests that such texts may participate in uncovering ‘unfinished business’ and in this way contribute to debates about understandings of the past. At the very least, the concept of ‘reconciliation as method’ prompts us to consider how literary narratives (among other forms of cultural texts) provoke questions of historical responsibility.' (introduction)

Last amended 13 Jul 2021 11:45:18
Settings:
  • Broome, Kimberley area, North Western Australia, Western Australia,
  • South Australia,
  • 1942
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