Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Biography, Literature & Literary studies

HEAT AND LIGHT

Ellen Van Neerven

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. Winner of the 2013 David Unaipon Award.

Born in 1990, Ellen van Neerven is a writer of Mununjali and Dutch heritage. She belongs to the Yugambeh people of the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim. She won the David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer in the 2013 Queensl and Literary Awards for Heat and Light. Ellen's short fiction, poetry and memoir have been published in numerous publications, including McSweeney's, Voiceworks and Mascara Literary Review. She lives in Brisbane.

Available products
Book Published 2014-08-27 by UQP University of Queensland Press - St Lucia (AUS)
Book Published 2014-08-27 by UQP University of Queensland Press - St Lucia (AUS)

Comments

A bold and adventurous work. This is a very fine debut from a talented writer.

Article referencing the book: ...Heat and Light (UQP) by Ellen Van Neerven, a continually surprising story collection, stylistically disruptive, moody, visceral, brimming with complex characters and precariously balanced situations. Read more...

Article referencing the book: ...Ellen van Neerven is one of the most important emerging writers in Australia... Her debut book, Heat and Light, is an extraordinary work of linked fictions... Read more...

There is an energy about these stories that is driven not only by the gutsy, gay, Aboriginal narrator . but also from the vitality of van Neerven's prose. She is not afraid to take risks and in her assured hands they pay off.

Ellen van Neerven produces writing with a rare imaginative force.

My book of the year was the short story collection Heat and Light by the young Queensland writer Ellen van Neerven. The stories evoke mystery and sensuality in equal measure, while the vivid portrait of landscape leaves the taste of dust in your throat and fear in your heart.

My favourite read by far this year. A breathtaking work of art.

Few succeed to the extent that exists between the pages of Heat and Light. [A] remarkable young talent.

She has the knack of knowing the right moment to bring a story to a conclusion. Van Neerven is an excellent storyteller who has drawn on her indigenous heritage for inspiration and has created a quality publication which should intrigue and delight her readers.

a strong and significant new voice inAustralian writing

Winner of the Dobbie Literary Award (for first time authors in the Nita B Kibble Literary Awards for Women Writers) Joint-winner of the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists (with four other winners) Shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction Shortlisted for Queensland Literary Awards - Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance Shortlisted for Queensland Literary Awards - Australian Short Story Collection - Steele Rudd Award Shortlisted for the 2015 NSW Premier's Literary Award Shortlisted for the Stella Prize

Ellen van Neerven . establishes herself here as a writer of imagination and intelligence, not afraid to mix fantastic visions with the heat of desire or the need to belong. This is a compelling and revelatory collection.