Transactions
July 2013
Ali Alizadeh / UQP
This collection of linked short stories by Melbourne-based poet and novelist Ali Alizadeh, ranges widely in its attempt to portray a world in moral crisis at the mercy of economic forces. In settings as diverse as Liberia, Christchurch and Amsterdam, Alizadeh dips into the lives of sex workers, aid workers, businessmen, prison guards and writers, whose dealings with one another are defined – for the weak – by the imperatives of survival and safety, and – for the powerful – by the freedom to exploit.
This is no love letter to humanity. Transactions is most interesting for the questions it raises about how the political works in fiction. In this uneven collection, Alizadeh frequently eschews the form’s more subtle, persuasive powers in favour of excoriating satire and grim polemic, but in so doing he risks alienating readers who value fiction’s humanising power. It’s a worthy experiment, but perhaps an ineffective call-to-arms; amid the noisy urgency, Transactions offers little in the way of hope. The only alternative future here is post-apocalyptic, and justice – visited by a vigilante assassin – is vengeful rather than redemptive.
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