Small Acts of Disappearance (Fiona Wright, Giramondo)

In the last of the 10 essays that make up this autobiographical work, Fiona Wright calls out the genre ‘sick lit’ for its tendency to make writers out of people who are merely ill. As an award-winning poet and writer, Wright is in no danger of this, unpacking with excruciating intimacy the experience of living with anorexia. While she describes in some detail the daily grind of her disease—the careful evasion of meals, the food phobias, the hospital stints and group therapy—the work is a philosophical undertaking, and Wright confronts anorexia’s more metaphysical concerns with a poet’s precision. The essay form lends itself to this elevated reading, and Wright moves through themes with an engaging and self-effacing sweep. Through literature, science and history she teases out several perspectives on the idea of hunger, drawing in some detail on works of Australian literature—Rose Pickles in Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet is one. She also examines her own relationship with food and hunger. From the pursuit of invisibility (and its contradictions), to her own self-imposed hunger living in proximity to poverty in Sri Lanka and World War II concentration camps, Wright offers a deeply intelligent and accessible insight into an illness not widely understood.

Jenni Kauppi is an editor, critic and bookseller

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews