The 2013 Voiceless Anthology
December 2012
Allen & Unwin
Selected by J.M. Coetzee, Ondine Sherman, Wendy Were and Susan Wyndham.
The Voiceless Writing Prize which professes a desire ‘to advance public understanding of animal sentience’ might engender the suspicion that these shortlisted essays and stories are a homogenous mass of either emotional manipulation or a vegetarian militancy. But then its selection committee is composed largely of impeccable literary pedigree.
And so, thankfully, it shimmers with a playfulness that is sometimes deadly serious; of ideas, language and philosophical questionings alongside recognition of Indigenous thinking. There are pieces of great resonance and dexterity. Anne Coombs, writer and social activist turned farmer, teases out complexities implicit in an ethical life and her acute observations are alternately joyful and steeped in pathos. Hilary Key’s accomplished tones of irony present as a kind of literary trench warfare, whilst Liana Joy Christenson’s intellectual interrogation is eccentrically inventive alongside Darren Chard’s muscular tale of foreboding. A piece by a collective from Bawaka Country is stunningly lyrical. Alphabetically arranged, it might be read any way, as long as it is read sentiently.
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