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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Maddy yearns for her life to be mystifying, to be as magical as a fairy story. And then one day, on the beach, she meets the strangest young man she has ever seen.
'The Ghost's Child is an enchanting fable about the worth of life, and the power of love.' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Dedication: For Julie Watts
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The Ghost's Child was the Australian selection for the 2010 IBBY honour list.
Affiliation Notes
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This work is affiliated with the AustLit subset Asian-Australian Children's Literature and Publishing because it has a Korean translation.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Silencing and Subjugation Masquerading as Love and Understanding : Sonya Hartnett's The Ghost's Child
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature , vol. 17 no. 3 2014;'Astrid Lindgren Award winner Sonya Hartnett's work is always many-layered, intriguing and thought-provoking. This study considers The Ghost Child, a fictional memoir of families and relationships, in a post-colonial context and, while it speaks of timeless universal human interests such as resilience, love, loss and longing, dependency and betrayal, it also works allegorically as a reminder that how we see ourselves is shaped by the historical and cultural discourses which define us. More specifically, the novel brings to light the power-imbalances often found across cultures in the practice of everyday post-colonial life.
'Therefore, this paper argues that the authority contained in Hartnett’s principal character’s “living” voice masks colonial discourses of silencing and subjugation in play. When considered in these terms, The Ghost Child becomes an artistic forum for the unearthing of how colonialism’s self-serving, discursive representations have, historically, spoken for colonised individuals, children and adults alike, denying them equal participation in the affairs of life.' (Publication abstract)
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Editor's Introduction
2014
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature , vol. 17 no. 3 2014; 'Caroline Jones introduces this issue's "Alice's Academy" article.' -
The Case for The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 26 March 2014;
— Review of The Ghost's Child 2007 single work novel -
Fear, Voice, and the Environment in Sonya Hartnett's Forest and The Midnight Zoo
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations Into Children's Literature , vol. 21 no. 1 2011; (p. 67-76) 'Subtle is not a word that is normally associated with Sonya Hartnett's style. Rather, she is known for her stark, bold approach. However, when it comes to the Australian environment, Hartnett is indeed subtle in her approach. Hartnett has set in play a new, almost posthumanist style of writing about the nonhuman. The Australian landscape and environment has always figured prominently in Australian literature for both adults and children but Hartnett has taken this writing in a totally different direction. This article looks at two of Hartnett's novels, Forest and The Midnight Zoo, and examines how Hartnett offers new and exciting avenues of thought regarding the place of humans in that environment.' (Author's abstract)
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The Spectre of Melancholy in Sonya Hartnett's The Ghost's Child
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 19 no. 1 2009; (p. 40-50) 'Images of alienation in young adult fictions are common, arguably because they mirror the cultural discourses around adolescence as displaced between two (constructed) 'knowable' states: childhood and adulthood. The connection between displacement and melancholy in texts for young adults provides a vast array of narrative symbolism that often blurs reality and fantasy as knowable versus unknowable states respectively. Sonya Hartnett's approach to adolescent introspection and states of melancholy-depression is often confrontational and her (critically acclaimed) young adult fiction interleaves often destructive narratives of incest, familial violence, murder and suicide with contemporary and historical landscapes.
The Ghost's Child (2007), is a fictionalized and historicized account of individual alienation and sadness whereby, melancholy and depression serve as powerful forces (of lossdesire) able to induce spectral presences in the life of the protagonist in ways that allow fantasy to become a means to negotiate loss and combat alienation. The overt psychological dimensions of the narrative are obviated through images of melancholy, madness, abjection and death.
This paper initiates a discussion of the text's psychoanalytic connotations through the ideas of both Freud and Kristeva. However, in order to question if/how the narrative moves beyond the traditional parameters that construct melancholy as either a clinical pathology or a useful literary/aesthetic device, melancholy is also discussed through the ideas of Gilles Deleuze. The incorporation of Deleuze's work enables a way to re-think conventional representations of the melancholic as an essentially abject and marginalised subject position' (Author's abstract).
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Another Feather in the Cap of Love
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 14 July 2007; (p. 27)
— Review of The Ghost's Child 2007 single work novel -
Ethereal Fable of Age, Love and Longing
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 14-15 July 2007; (p. 13)
— Review of The Ghost's Child 2007 single work novel -
Hartnett Finds a Lighter Touch
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 21 July 2007; (p. 17)
— Review of The Ghost's Child 2007 single work novel -
This Flighty Fable Never Gets off the Ground
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28-29 July 2007; (p. 34-35)
— Review of The Ghost's Child 2007 single work novel -
[Review] The Ghost's Child
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , July vol. 22 no. 3 2007; (p. 42)
— Review of The Ghost's Child 2007 single work novel -
Strangled by Success
2007
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 30 June - 1 July 2007; (p. 6) -
Across the Age Divide
2007
single work
column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 18 - 19 August 2007; (p. 26) This column discusses the crossing of boundaries in reading and why adults should be able to enjoy reading children's and young adult titles. -
From Loo Paper Draft to Award, Children's Author Is on a Roll
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 16 August 2008; (p. 3) -
The Children's Book Council of Australia Judges' Report 2008
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , August vol. 52 no. 3 2008; (p. 3 - 9) -
CBCA Awards - Acceptance Speeches : Sonya Hartnett
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , November vol. 52 no. 4 2008; (p. 3)