Bill Brydon

“The giantess governed and there were no other women. The men were innocent and happy and carefree. If they were hurt, they were quickly consoled. For the giantess was kind, and would set them on her knee and tell them they were brave and strong and noble. And if they were hungry, the giantess would feed them. The milk from her breasts was sweeter than honey and more nutritious than mangoes. If they grew fractious, the giantess would sing, and they would clamber up her legs and onto her lap and sleep unruffled. They were a happy people and things might have gone on in this way forever, were it not for the fact that the giantess grew tired. Her”
― Suniti Namjoshi, The Fabulous Feminist

“The Beast considered these arguments circular, but she discovered also that she was unhappy. Boys didn’t interest her. She fell in love with a girl. The girl disapproved, and she found that she was now the object of ridicule. She became more and more solitary and turned to books. But the books made it clear that men loved women, and women loved men, and men rode off and had all sorts of adventures and women stayed at home. ‘I know what it is,’ she said one day, ‘I know what is wrong: I am not human. The only story that fits me at all is the one about the Beast. But the Beast doesn’t change from a Beast to a human because of its love. It’s just the reverse. And the Beast isn’t fierce. It’s extremely gentle. It loves Beauty, but it lives alone and dies alone.’ And that’s what she did. Her”
― Suniti Namjoshi, The Fabulous Feminist

“There was once a poet who thought she was a nightingale,       and another who thought she was a rose -       charming perhaps, able certainly, having found at least       a way to cope. Would the nightingale’s entrails       have been more powerful (as emblematic objects)       laid out on the floor of a room that you came to, and then       withdrew from, startled and amazed?       Oh the rose is bloodless, she is white with pain;       and Philomel wails in the woods again.       But there are the other more ordinary animals.       They are not literary.             They own their pain.”
― Suniti Namjoshi, The Fabulous Feminist

“Indeed, on their respective days of owning the tongue, each of the neighbours could not help but echo the mouth of the previous owner. The Italian family eventually developed a taste for the occasional cardamom tea, the Filipino adventurously spread some Vegemite on his pan de sal and, at one time, the Australian couple stirred fish heads into their sour soup. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan began hosting summer feasts by the barbie, and the Turkish baker even serenaded his wife with songs about love and volcanoes as he prepared a tray of almond biscotti for the oven. You see, the tongue had an excellent memory. Even when it had moved to a new mouth, it still evoked the breath of spices, sweets and syllables of the former host. It was never known to forget anything, least of all the fact that it was once the soft, pink flesh of a South Coast mollusc; it yielded itself to a higher good one winter night when the ocean was formidably wild.”
― Merlinda Bobis, White Turtle