First Nations

Comfort Food
by Ellen van Neerven

Moving between places and cultures, Comfort Food explores identity, sovereignty and the restless quest for love.

A$24.95

(Paperback)

Available. Dispatched 2-3 business days

Overview

I also saw those spirit dogs
and poetry travelled with me
like rivers
I didn’t ever eat alone
‘Goan Fish Curry’

Following on from the success of their award-winning fiction debut, Heat and Light, Ellen van Neerven announces themself as a talented poet with this assured collection. Using food as their inspiration, van Neerven offers a cross-cultural vision of the exotic and the familiar. This sensuous volume sets a new benchmark in contemporary Australian poetry.

Details

Awards

ebook

Readings

‘Moving between places and cultures, Comfort Food explores identity, sovereignty and the restless quest for love.’

Australian Book Review

‘... Comfort Food delighted me with its emotional heft, its sustaining interest in community and love, and the sparse balance of its lyricism and language.’

Westerly Magazine

‘... a gathering of the intimate, complicated moments shared between friends and family over food and drink’

Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage. 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 are the author of two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize; and Throat, which won the Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Their latest book, Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction in 2024.