Heat and Light

Teacher Resource

Publisher's synopsis

In this award-winning work of fiction, Ellen van Neerven leads readers on a journey that is mythical, mystical and still achingly real.

Over three parts, van Neerven takes traditional storytelling and gives it a unique, contemporary twist. In ‘Heat’, we meet several generations of the Kresinger family and the legacy left by the mysterious Pearl. In ‘Water’, a futuristic world is imagined and the fate of a people threatened. In ‘Light’, familial ties are challenged and characters are caught between a desire for freedom and a sense of belonging.

Heat and Light is an intriguing collection that heralded the arrival of a major new talent in Australian writing.

Awards

Winner of the 2013 David Unaipon Award.
Winner, 2015, Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists
Winner, 2015, Dobbie Literary Award
Co-winner, 2016, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards – Indigenous Writer’s Prize
Shortlisted, 2015, The Stella Prize
Shortlisted, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards (UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing)
Shortlisted, Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
Shortlisted, Queensland Literary Awards – Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance
Shortlisted, Queensland Literary Awards – Australian Short Story Collection – Steele Rudd Award
Shortlisted, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing
Longlisted, 2015, ASAL ALS Gold Medal
Commended, 2016, The Kate Challis RAKA Award for Indigenous Fiction

Other Recommended Titles

Don’t Take Your Love to Town

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence

Meet Me at the Intersection

Purple Threads

Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. They have written two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize; and Throat, which was shortlisted in 2021 for the Queensland Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Ellen also won the Queensland Literary Awards – Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award and the University of Melbourne’s Australian Centre Literary Awards – Peter Blazey Fellowship in 2019.

Photo by Anna Jacobson, courtesy of UQP

A stunning debut from a young writer of immense potential.

Melissa Lucashenko

Further Details

Author Ellen van Neerven

Publisher UQP

Date of Publication 2014

ISBN 9780702265990

Category Short Stories

SCIS number

5476533

Pages

264