Pearl

by Ellen Van Neerven

17 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2014

About the author

Ellen van Neerven (they/them) is an award-winning author, editor and educator of Mununjali (Yugambeh language group) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, and non-fiction on unceded Turrbal and Yuggera land. van Neerven’s first book, Heat and Light (UQP, 2014), a novel-in-stories, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. van Neerven’s poetry collection Comfort Food (UQP, 2016) won the Tina Kane Emergent Award and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize. Throat (UQP, 2020) is the recipient of Book of the Year, the Kenneth Slessor Prize, and the Multicultural Award at 2021 NSW Literary Awards, and the inaugural Quentin Bryce Award.

Reviews

[Productive Procrastinator · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes there is a bit too much telling rather than showing via the narration, but the enigmatic and layered characterisation is excellent as well as the incorporation of Aboriginal spirituality into the text. The themes of generational trauma and the refusal of a fixed identity are very interesting, and it was refreshing to read a work by an Aboriginal author that was so obviously written without white audiences in mind.

[Catnap · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5