AustLit logo

AustLit

Sarah Krasnostein Sarah Krasnostein i(11873490 works by)
Born: Established:
c
United States of America (USA),
c
Americas,
;
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Born in the United States, Sarah Krasnostein studied in Australia. Earning her doctorate in criminal law, she is a law lecturer and researcher at Monash (as at 2017). She lives in Melbourne, and spends part of the year working in New York City. After publishing the essay 'The Secret Life of a Crime Scene Cleaner' on Longreads in 2014, she went on to publish her first book, The Trauma Cleaner in 2017.

In 2021, she published, again with Text Publishing, The Believer, an exploration of the power of belief based on interviews held in Australia and the United States.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Trauma Cleaner The Trauma Cleaner : One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay & Disaster Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2017 11873511 2017 single work biography

'I call my dad from the car and ask him about his morning, tell him about mine.

'‘What kind of hoarder was she?’ he asks.

'‘Books and cats, mainly,’ I tell the man who loves his cats and who I know is now actively considering his extensive book collection.

'‘What’s the difference between a private library and a book hoarder?’ he wonders.

'We are both silent before we laugh and answer in unison: ‘Faeces.’

'But the difference is this phone call. And the others like it I could make—and how strong we are when we are loved.

'Before she was a trauma cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wife…

'But as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home, she just wanted to belong. Now she believes her clients deserve no less.

'A woman who sleeps among garbage she has not put out for forty years. A man who bled quietly to death in his loungeroom. A woman who lives with rats, random debris and terrified delusion. The still life of a home vacated by accidental overdose.

'Sarah Krasnostein has watched the extraordinary Sandra Pankhurst bring order and care to these, the living and the dead—and the book she has written is equally extraordinary. Not just the compelling story of a fascinating life among lives of desperation, but an affirmation that, as isolated as we may feel, we are all in this together.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2019 shortlisted National Biography Award
2019 shortlisted Wellcome Book Prize
2019 joint winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction

With Deep Time Dreaming.

2019 longlisted Wellcome Book Prize
2018 winner 'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature The Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize
2018 longlisted Walkley Award Best Non-Fiction Book
2018 longlisted 'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature
2018 shortlisted Davitt Award Best Debut
2018 shortlisted Davitt Award Best True Crime Book
2018 shortlisted Australian Booksellers Association Awards Booksellers Choice Award
2018 winner Kibble Literary Awards Nita May Dobbie Award
2018 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Autobiography / Biography / Memoir
2018 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) The Matt Richell Award for New Writer
2018 winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian General Non-Fiction Book of the Year
2018 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Victorian Prize for Literature
2018 shortlisted Indie Awards Nonfiction
2018 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction
Last amended 27 Sep 2021 10:43:26
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X