Mindy Gill

'Till "real voices" wake us, and we drown: The mire of identity politics' by Mindy Gill

March 2022, no. 440 • 20 February 2022

We can learn much about a culture by listening to how it talks about its art. The way non-white writers, for want of a better phrase, tend to be reviewed in Australia tells us a lot about how we determine cultural value. Some reviewers place a premium on the author’s biography – her identity – rather than on her work itself. The reviewer avoids critical engagement with the text in favour of ... (read more)

Mindy Gill reviews 'Harlem Shuffle' by Colson Whitehead

October 2021, no. 436 • 23 September 2021

Readers of Colson Whitehead’s two recent Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad (2016) and The Nickel Boys (2019) – both historical literary novels focused on the Underground Railroad and the Jim Crow era, respectively – may be surprised by his eighth book, Harlem Shuffle, a crime novel written in the swaggering voice of a Quentin Tarantino character. Whitehead has always dr ... (read more)

Mindy Gill reviews 'Racism: Stories on fear, hate and bigotry' edited by Winnie Dunn, Stephen Pham, and Phoebe Grainer

July 2021, no. 433 • 21 June 2021

Sweatshop, based in Western Sydney, is a writing and literacy organisation that mentors emerging writers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Racism, their ninth anthology, brings together all thirty-nine writers involved in their three programs – the Sweatshop Writers Group, Sweatshop Women Collective, and Sweatshop Schools Initiative. The section titled ‘Micro Aggressive F ... (read more)

Mindy Gill reviews 'Revenge: Murder in three parts' by S.L. Lim

April 2021, no. 430 • 31 March 2021

S.L. Lim’s second novel, Revenge, begins with an ‘all persons fictitious’ disclaimer. The paragraph concludes: ‘Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. LOL!’ ... (read more)

Mindy Gill reviews 'We Were Never Friends' by Margaret Bearman

September 2020, no. 424 • 24 August 2020

Margaret Bearman’s We Were Never Friends is a novel that places the myth of the artistic male genius against the critical eye of history. Lotti, the eldest daughter of renowned Australian painter George Coates, narrates from two perspectives: her younger, twelve-year-old self and her present-day one, a trainee surgeon. In 1999 the Coates family abandons Sydney, assured that ‘Canberra would be ... (read more)