'The brothers Kovalenko...did not kill Jews just because they were poor and Ukrainian, and did not know any better. They killed Jews because they believed that they themselves were savages.'
'The Hand that Signed the Paper tells the story of Vitaly, a Ukrainian peasant, who endures the destruction of his village and family by Stalin's communism. He welcomes the Nazi invasion in 1941 and willingly enlists in the SS Death Squads to take a horrifying revenge against those he perceives to be his persecutors.
'This remarkable novel, a shocking story of the hatred that gives evil life, is also an eloquent plea for peace and justice.' (Publication summary)
'As war crimes prosecutions seize Australia, Fiona Kovalenko discovers that her own family is implicated in the darkest events of the twentieth century. This is their story. First published under an assumed identity, The Hand that Signed the Paper remains one of the most celebrated and controversial books in recent Australian literature. With a new introduction by the author, it continues to raise urgent questions about history, responsibility, and truth.'
(2018 Wilkinson Publishing)
Epigraph:
The hand that signed the paper felled a city; five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; these five kings did a king to death. The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, and famine grew, and locusts came; great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name.
– Dylan Thomas, The Hand that Signed the Paper
In such condition…there is no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: And the life of man, solitary, pore, nasty, brutish, and short.
– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Dedication:
For my family, and for Melissa Richards and Paul Gadaloff Vox et praeterea nihil
Author's note:
'There are many stories in the world. People speak; stories are passed on. Stories and words have a life of their own, but only if others listen.'
Neurocognitive Interpretations of Australian Literature : Criticism in the Age of Neuroawareness
London
:
Routledge
,
2021
21558011
2021
multi chapter work
criticism
'This unique book on neurocognitive interpretations of Australian literature covers a wide range of analyses by discussing Australian Literary Studies, Aboriginal literary texts, women writers, ethnic writing, bestsellers, neurodivergence fiction, emerging as well as high profile writers, literary hoaxes and controversies, book culture, LGBTIQA+ authors, to name a few. It eclectically brings together a wide gamut of cognitive concepts and literary genres at the intersection of Australian literary studies and cognitive literary studies in the first single-author volume of its kind. It takes Australian Literary Studies into the age of neuroawareness and provides new pathways in contemporary criticism.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Recent scandals in Australian non-fiction have highlighted publishers’ responsibilities not only to their readers but to their authors’ subjects. But is a failure of fact-checking solely to blame? Or are there further hidden risks in the way these revelations are reported?' (Introduction)
