The Rot
Title: The Rot
Author: Evelyn Araluen
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Shortlist: Indigenous Writing
The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these poems expose fraying nerves and tendons of a speaker refusing to avert their gaze from the death of Country, death on Country, and the bloody violence of settler colonies here and afar. Across sleepless nights, fractured alliances and self-destructive coping strategies, The Rot is what happens when poetry swallows more rage than it can console, quiet or ironise – this book demands you ready yourself for a better world.
Judges’ Report
The Rot is a work of remarkable poetic intelligence; formally bold, emotionally exacting and politically uncompromising. Araluen pushes contemporary Indigenous writing into new territory, blending lyric, critique and cultural memory with precision and risk. Her poems move with unsettling clarity through intergenerational pain, structural violence and the daily labour of survival, refusing sentimentality while remaining fiercely compassionate. Engaging tradition with innovation, she writes in a voice that is elastic, self-questioning and alive to the stakes of language. Formally inventive and ethically rigorous, The Rot stands as a vital intervention in this country’s cultural conversation.
Extract
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About the Author
Evelyn Araluen
VPLA book photography by Shannyn Higgins
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are proudly supported by the Victorian Government.
