AustLit

'What does collective action look like at the end of the world? Who will prepare the meals for those hungry for sustenance and liberation? In Admit the Joyous Passion of Revolt, her second full-length collection, Elena Gomez demands her readers consider what the body needs as it resists its own oppression. A glorious retort to late-stage capitalism and all the ways it distracts us, this collection spins together a bleak map of what it means to exist today, while forcing us to consider all the parts of ourselves we have already offered to a system that yearns for our surrender.' (Publication summary)

'The first time I altered my body was in 2006, when my mother smeared hot wax onto my brow ridge. In retrospect, the two of us didn't know enough about the liquid fabric, the way it would fasten itself to skin, clinging desperately to every last strand of hair. I was 12, and - embarrassingly enough - could hardly tell the time, let alone understand the mechanics of hot wax. My mother was born with no eyebrows or eyelashes, which practically rendered her useless when it came to hair removal practices. Naturally, the wax-strip poked fun at our naivety and took my entire eyebrow hostage, damning me to a three-month eyebrow-less sentence. I was an insecure preteen enjoying the tail end of primary school with half of her face stripped bare.'  (Publication abstract)

'Nicole politely offered me a swig. Her friends were as handsome as I imagined.

'Afterwards, she quivered beside me outside until my bus arrived. Our breath danced in front of us in the dark, in the cold – just trying to keep up.

'‘You’ll be fine. We’re in Denmark!’ she laughed, waving goodbye as I staggered up the burnished stairs of the empty bus. No WiFi, no SIM card; just a fleeting woman in a pair of laced-up dress shoes, gazing out a window at not much at all. Female, tan, early twenties, slender-build. Travelling alone in a time zone eight hours behind her mother’s. Last seen in a vacant bus after midnight, somewhere just north of Copenhagen.' (Introduction)