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y separately published work icon Asylum single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 Asylum
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

' ‘Just because you can’t see the chains doesn’t mean they don’t exist.’

'In the Sanctuary, two robed men cut the hair of clients who have been called to pass through the White or Black Door. Along with their hair, the clients shed stories: of the horrors of their past, the Place they’ve inhabited since their escape, and what lies beyond the Doors. These stories are inscribed as Legends, but do they record a vision of Paradise or Hell?

'This allegory, echoing Kafka, illuminates the stark terror of the modern age, marked by a border in constant shift between gods and men, truth and deception, freedom and constraint, memory and forgetting, revealing a world whose essence is its hiddenness - a world that hides, not in darkness, but in the light.

'‘What I will tell you now is only guesswork. Because when a person is called they just disappear and are never seen again. We assume that their case is finally being heard, that they have moved on from here to the next stage. You seem to think of it as something dreadful, but it’s why we came here after all. We came here of our own free will, you must remember that, and we are free to leave at any time.’' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: For George
  • Epigraph: What these Ithakas mean –Constantine Cavafy

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Crawley, Inner Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: UWA Publishing , 2016 .
      image of person or book cover 1602663111099810408.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 169p.
      Note/s:
      • Published March 2016
      ISBN: 9781742588261

Works about this Work

Meditation on the Search for Sanctuary Michael McGirr , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 9 July 2016; (p. 20)

— Review of Asylum John Hughes , 2016 single work novel
'... John Hughes' novella, Asylum, is no less astringent and tough-minded. It is a more abstract meditation on similar themes to those at work in Chasing Asylum but with an underpinning as much in philosophy as in any immediate political crisis. ...'
Sanctuary Lucas Smith , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 382 2016; (p. 23)

— Review of Asylum John Hughes , 2016 single work novel
Sanctuary Lucas Smith , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 382 2016; (p. 23)

— Review of Asylum John Hughes , 2016 single work novel
Meditation on the Search for Sanctuary Michael McGirr , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 9 July 2016; (p. 20)

— Review of Asylum John Hughes , 2016 single work novel
'... John Hughes' novella, Asylum, is no less astringent and tough-minded. It is a more abstract meditation on similar themes to those at work in Chasing Asylum but with an underpinning as much in philosophy as in any immediate political crisis. ...'
Last amended 25 May 2016 10:41:06
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