Rev. of Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing: The New Audacity JENNIFER COOKE, Cambridge University Press, 2020, 234pp., £75.00 (Hardback), ISBN 9781108779692.Rev. of Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing: The New Audacity JENNIFERCOOKE, Cambridge University Press, 2020, 234 pp., £75.00 (Hardback), ISBN 9781108779692.

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 1.2 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 1.3 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 1.4 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 1.5 Rather than the victims holding or bearing shame, a sadly expected narrative when it comes to sexual assault.6 This resulted in the #LetUsSpeak/#LetHerSpeak campaign which can be found here: https://www.letusspeak.com.au/. On this site prominent Australian trauma writer, Bri Lee, is quoted saying “If I lived in Tasmania or the Northern Territory it would have been illegal for me to have ever written or published my book, Eggshell Skull. I can only imagine what it would feel like for an individual to go through the crime, then the justice system, and only then be told they don’t have the right to tell their story publicly.” Several authors and creatives testify to the power that writing and speaking about their assaults has allowed them and the detriment of these “victim gag laws”.7 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 72.8 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 72.9 It is worth noting that most of the (closely read) texts in this book are from the early 2010s with a few earlier, and the most recent being 2018 (Place’s works, an example of “dangerous” audacities). Including more recent examples of productive (for want of a better word) audacity to balance the slightly older ones might have further deepened this discussion.10 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 159-160.11 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 170.12 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 171.13 Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing, 171.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMarina DellerDr. Marina Deller is a writer and researcher at Flinders University of South Australia.