Ruin and Other Stories

(Paperback)

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Women and girls walk a perilously thin line between ruin and redemption in these stories as they trywith varying degrees of successto outmanouver the violence that threatens to define their lives. Theres the physical violence of men against their bodiesand sometimes the violence they exact in revenge. While doubts about a romantic partner, an abandonment by a sister, the fallout of a parents porgnography addiction, the betrayal of a friend, even the desire to touch a strangers 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 isnt 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. Ruin is a machine for the exposure and exploration of power. It turns the intricacy and activity of relationship over in the cogs of its deft craft. Its an incredible confirmation of what short fiction can do and be: beautiful, confronting, validating. Pip Adam, author of The New Animals and Nothing to See

Author Bio

Emma Hislop (Ki 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 Takah. She has a Masters of Creative Writing from the IIML and in 2021 received the Creative New Zealand Louis Johnson New Writers Bursary.