Ruin

Book Author Emma Hislop
Rights Available World excl. NZ

Women and girls walk a perilously thin line between ruin and redemption in these stories as they try—with varying degrees of success—to outmanouver the violence that threatens to define their lives.

There’s the physical violence of men against their bodies—and sometimes the violence they exact in revenge. While doubts about a romantic partner, an abandonment by a sister, the fallout of a parent’s pornography addiction, the betrayal of a friend, even the desire to touch a stranger’s fur-like body are subtler aggressions that pack their own kinds of punches.

Moving between contemporary New Zealand and London, and a dreamlike landscape that isn’t quite real, this debut collection shimmers with a brutal kind of hope, exploring power and its contortions, powerlessness and its depravities, and the ends to which we will go to claim back agency.

About the Author
Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu) is a Taranaki-based writer. Her work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies in New Zealand and overseas, including Action Spectacle, Sport, Huia, Newsroom and Takahē. She has a Masters of Creative Writing from the IIML and in 2021 received the Creative New Zealand Louis Johnson New Writers Bursary.