My last bunch of Stella longlist reads before the shortlist announcement on 8th April (I also have Always Will Be by Mykaela Saunders on loan from the library but not sure I will have time to read it this week).

Translations by Jumaana Abdu

Most people probably don’t remember writing lessons they were given in grade four, however, I do. I had a teacher who was clued in to the fact that some ten-year-olds had discovered the thesaurus and as a result, strung lots of adjectives together for a more ‘sophisticated’ sentence. He quickly put a ban on what he called ‘fruit salad’ writing. It had an impact – to this day, I prefer to read straight-forward but evocative writing.

There is no doubt that Abdu can write, it’s just that Abdu’s writing is fruit salad. Weighed down by flowery sentences, there’s a lot of telling not showing. Additionally, I felt that I was being schooled in the main themes rather than discovering them. The themes focus on religious and spiritual beliefs, and displacement and dispossession, and are explored through Palestinian Muslim and Indigenous Australian characters. The story is set in a regional Australian town, which adds to the social and cultural tensions.

There’s plenty of drama and plot twists, culminating in a final scene that stretched plausibility.

Will it win? Wouldn’t be my choice.

2.5/5

A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle

I am not going to say anything about the structure of this novel because it will inadvertently reveal spoilers to careful readers (and for that reason, if you are keen to read this book, avoid reviews on Goodreads which virtually all discuss the way the book is structured).

I went in to this story about a queer girl and her first love, knowing nothing and having no expectations. About a quarter of the way through, I understood where Hardcastle was taking me and from there, I couldn’t put the book down. It’s inventive and thoughtful – I cried; I imagined Sydney in the eighties (the AIDS epidemic is part of this story, of which Hardcastle writes, ‘Silence, we are already learning, will be the overwhelming and recurrent quality of this decade and the next.’); and I enjoyed spotting details that tied elements of the story together.

And Hardcastle writes beautifully, with small sections of poetry woven through the prose.

Because in this moment, I feel already the grand beginning of everything beyond.

We toe the shoreline between rock and ocean, between what you see and what we are underneath…

Extra marks for two of my favourite themes – grief and swimming (not always together but in this instance they are). Of grief, Hardcastle writes –

Grief is not sadness. It is a kaleidoscope of desires. Like white light refracted through skin.
Sadness, I think, is the object. And grief is the negative space.

And in terms of managing grief, they simply state ‘…let the water carry what you can’t…’. Superb.

Will it win? I think it might.

4/5

Naag Mountain by Manisha Anjali

Admission – the prose of Naag Mountain was challenging for me. I read sentences over and over, thinking I’d missed some vital narrative thread but despite my re-reading, I couldn’t pick up the rhythm. And reading shouldn’t feel like a chore.

I occasionally grasped onto something concrete. For example –

…at some point, these sugar can fields were owned by Colonial Sugar Refining Company, the company that once owned my family.

Only to be faced with something that made no sense at all. For example –

When I am at the crossroads, I cut the reptiles from my hair. I inherited my eyes from bus drivers and farmers and teaheads. I buried eight of my eyes in my mother’s garden.

And there were some slippery bits, were I got it… and then a few words later, I didn’t. For example –

When a story is shared by mouth, the story is never the same, it changes the way it wants to, and every version is true. We pull the propaganda instruments out of our throats. We hang our mother’s singing shellfish from our ears. Imagination is a political tool designed to keep us in love. It is our responsibility to always be in love.

I’m glad that some readers have understood and relished Anjali’s words, and especially the Stella Prize judges – there’s no doubt that books that veer from the standard deserve an audience. Alas, this one was not for me.

Will it win? No.

2/5