In a dawn raid, Ekaterina is arrested. She is imprisoned, beaten, kept awake and tortured. She has no idea what has happened to her partner, Mercedes. The uncertainty plagues her. It is as if she has no history. Trying to retain her sense of self in swirling psychic state, she invents stories. And she remembers stories of her mother, her grandmothers and aunts, the rich mythic traditions of Greece. She rearranges them writes poems in her head. Thirty years later, her niece Desi is going through Kate's papers after her death trying to make sense of her aunts life. Susan Hawthorne's dark story uncovers hidden history of organised violence. She traces fear and uncertainty, and finds a narrative of resilience created through the writing of poems. The author asks: how do we pass on stories hidden by shame and resistance to shame? A novel that is both poetic and terrifying.
Susan Hawthorne joined the Womens Liberation Movement in 1973. She quickly volunteered at Melbournes Rape Crisis Centre and was active in student politics. She has organised writers festivals, been an aerialist in two womens circuses and written on topics as diverse as war, friendship with animals, and mythic traditions. She writes non-fiction, fiction and poetry and her books have been translated into multiple languages. Her most recent non-fiction is Vortex: The Crisis of Patriarchy. She has taught English to Arabic-speaking women, worked in Aboriginal education and had teaching roles across a number of subject areas in universities including Philosophy, Womens Studies, Literature, Publishing Studies and Creative Writing. She is Adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities at James Cook University, Townsville. She has won awards in writing, publishing, the gay and lesbian community and in 2017 was winner of the Penguin Random House Best Achievement in Writing in the Inspire Awards for her work increasing peoples awareness of disability.
"Dark Matters is a magnificent book which I am deeply honoured to be launching." Marion May Campbell, launching the book at Collected Works, Swanston St, Melbourne
